Episode 1679 - Tracy Letts

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron — Episode 1679: Tracy Letts (September 18, 2025)

Overview

In this candid, reflective episode of WTF, Marc Maron sits down with his friend Tracy Letts—Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actor, and screenwriter—for an expansive conversation about art, aging, authenticity, and navigating the shifting terrains of politics, creativity, and personal relationships. As Maron’s iconic podcast edges toward its end, the discussion is relaxed, meandering, and honest, delving into what keeps artists motivated and grounded amidst a chaotic world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Detaching from the Doom Scroll

• (16:51) Marc and Tracy open their conversation by discussing their attempts to step back from compulsive news consumption.
  • Tracy acknowledges that disengagement happens "in fits and starts" and wonders aloud about the actual impact of personal or artistic resistance to the political environment.
  • Maron and Letts agree on the importance of voting and supporting positive change, even as they feel the limitations of individual agency.

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy Letts: "I'm 60 years old. I'm not gonna, you know, what good does it do me to get out in the street with a sign or, you know, go down to the courthouse?" (17:43)
• Marc Maron: "There's this idea that...a lot of it is going to keep happening, but...very little is going to get through the noise." (18:18)

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Art, Meaning, and Museums

• (21:38–25:48) Tracy shares a moving experience visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, finding hope in crowds still seeking connection with art regardless of background or age.
  • The dialogue embarks into discussions of abstraction in art (notably Rothko), authenticity, and the value of not creating strictly to please an audience.
  • Both reflect on how abstract works (like those of Rothko) can move people in ways beyond simple interpretation.

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy Letts: "That's the most hopeful I felt in a long time...if we still got this, we're okay." (22:38)
• Marc Maron: "I think he [Rothko] was at the edge of the fucking abyss...and the only thing he could do not to dive into it, which he eventually did, was make those pictures." (25:08)

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On Playwriting, Success, and Value

• (26:40–40:25) Maron hones in on Letts’ relationship to writing, art, and recognition.
  • They explore the trials of creative self-expression, the challenge of writing plays, and the difference between doing personal work and collaborative performance.
  • Letts discusses collaborating with James Taylor on a musical and the inherent sadness in Taylor’s music.
  • They joke about the sometimes niche appeal of their respective work and surrendering the fantasy of being “for everyone.”

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy Letts: "The plays are me. That's who I am." (29:57)
• Tracy Letts (on his son rejecting James Taylor): "He asked me to take it off because it was too sad." (42:17)

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Insider vs. Outsider, Aging, and Self-Perception

• (34:35–47:37) A humorous and honest exploration of industry “insiders” vs. “outsiders,” imposter syndrome, and the strange rituals of show business gatherings.
  • Marc muses on the persistent feeling of being outside looking in, even as others might see him as a fixture.
  • Tracy points out most people feel like outsiders, regardless of apparent status.
  • They bond over the self-critical nature of reviewing one’s old creative material.

Notable Quotes:

• Marc Maron: "I still think I'm an outsider, really, because I'm not, like, a big celebrity." (35:40)
• Tracy Letts: "Aren't most people...outsiders who feel like outsiders even though you would identify them as insiders?" (37:06)
• Tracy Letts: "I have a kind of reverse body dysmorphia where I think I look all right, and then I see myself. I'm like, what the fuck?" (46:44)

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The Toll and Evolution of Podcasting

• (47:52–53:34) Maron digs deeply into his reasons for bringing WTF to a close:
  • He discusses exhaustion—not just physical, but emotional and creative—from years of public sharing.
  • He expresses a desire to step away from the mic to rediscover his creativity outside the shared self-revelation of podcasting and stand-up.

Notable Quotes:

• Marc Maron: "I'm a little tired of digging parts of myself out, which is what I do in order to share and relate..." (48:41)
• Tracy Letts: "Our public personality is curated...Part of the gig is I'm going to show you who I am, warts and all. But, of course, you don't really do [that]." (50:25)

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Collaborating and Acting: New Roles and Indigenous Representation

• (56:06–63:13) Tracy describes joining Sterling Harjo’s new FX show "The Lowdown," motivated by the uniqueness and honesty of Reservation Dogs and a desire to support more authentic Indigenous stories.
  • They discuss their own upbringings in Oklahoma and New Mexico, their connections (and lack thereof) to the Native communities around them, and the power of seeing underrepresented stories on screen.

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy Letts: "I got on a Zoom call with him [Sterling Harjo] and I said, I'll do anything...You can't keep me out of it." (57:11)
• Tracy Letts: "I've lived in Oklahoma for the first 17 years of my life. And I was like, why have I never seen these people represented on tv?" (63:27)

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Acting Craft: Roles Old & New, the Nature of ‘Research’

• (66:11–70:26) Tracy discusses recent acting projects, including a turn as a general in Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming film and reflects on the peculiar challenges of learning specialized "languages" (military, finance).
  • He admits he’s not a big "research" guy—preferring to let the costumes, sets, and story prompt the work of finding the character’s humanity.

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy Letts: "So the job in some way is to find a human being who's doing that job, performing this function." (69:04)
• Tracy Letts: "I just put on the costume and act like I pretend I'm the person." (69:45)

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Family Life, Mortality, and Intergenerational Change

• (75:51–81:02) Letts and Maron talk kids, mortality, legacy, and the shifting meaning of art and purpose as they age.
  • Letts’ blend of humor and candor about his children, their personalities, and the cold logic of mortality leads to some of the funniest and most moving moments of the episode.

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy Letts: “My 4 year old just has ice water in her veins...She said to my son, you know, again, he's three years older than her. She said to him, Haskell, you will never be loved.” (80:16)
• Marc Maron: "I know how that goes around...Some guy told me to get a kitten to stop my other cat from beating up on the old cat. I'm like, I'm not. I can't bring another. It's gonna outlive me." (78:55)

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Movies, Legacy, and Artistic Curiosity

• (81:25–84:25) Letts and Maron wrap up by sharing recent movie watches, reminiscing about filmgoing, and the persistent curiosity and nostalgia that comes with time.
  • They marvel at the enduring impact of classic art and artists—Kurosawa, Pynchon, and favorite screen performances—acknowledging renewed appreciation as they age and the cultural conversation evolves.

Notable Quotes:

• Marc Maron: "It's funny, you get to a certain age, all the old movies, I've...realized that about myself. It's like, I got to go back about 30 years to start really hitting the patch." (82:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Friendship Origin Story

• Tracy Letts: "You kind of dared me to be your friend." (34:45)
• Marc Maron: "That's right." (34:49)
• Tracy Letts: "...That night, I saw you in the bathroom and I went up and I gave you a hug. And a friendship was born." (35:16–35:18)

On The Challenge of Authentic Art

• Tracy Letts: "I wrote a play about fascism and nobody came. It's kind of how I feel." (73:27)
• Marc Maron: "What, to the Minutes?" (73:36)

On Kids' Brutal Honesty

• Tracy Letts: “My 4 year old...said to my son, Haskell, you will never be loved.” (80:16)
• Marc Maron: “Is she reading your plays?” (80:39)

Mortality and Math

• Marc Maron: "I can't bring another [pet]. It's gonna outlive me. It's a cat." (78:55)
• Tracy Letts: "You turn 60 and you're like, oh, I can pay." (78:53)

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Significant Timestamps

• 16:51 — Detaching from the news; personal strategies for resilience
• 21:38 — Hope in art/museum visits; art’s endurance
• 34:35 — Friendship, outsiders/insiders, and celebrity navigation
• 47:52 — Why Marc is ending WTF; emotional/creative toll
• 56:06 — Working with Sterling Harjo; "The Lowdown" and indigenous representation
• 66:11 — Tracy's latest film projects and thoughts on acting
• 75:51 — Family, kids, mortality, and legacy
• 81:25 — Movies and aging; recent watches and re-examinations

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Episode Tone & Style

The conversation maintains Marc Maron's trademark blend of neurotic humor, thoughtful skepticism, and surprising vulnerability, matched by Letts’ understated wit, warmth, and candor. Both men oscillate between self-deprecation, sincere artistic admiration, and the bittersweet observations that come with creative life and growing older.

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Takeaway

This episode is a tour de force of two seasoned artists at eye-level, discussing their craft, creative doubts, culture, comedy, art's meaning, and how to ride out the chaos both in society and in the mind. For fans—and those newly discovering WTF—it's a tender, funny, philosophical goodbye to the kind of honest conversation that thrives in Maron's garage.

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For listeners interested in art, writing, acting, or simply the process of being honest with oneself (and others) as the world spins madly on, this conversation is required listening.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

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[Brendan]

He.

[Marc Maron]

He held the screen, he could act, and he was funny. I mean, you really think about some of those movies. I mean, just the best. One of the best. I mean, what did I see? I saw some weird 70s movie when I was very young and I didn't. All I remember was it was in 1970, so. And I think I saw it when I. When it came out. Little Voss and Big Halsey. It was this. It was a motorcycle movie. It was a weird movie for him to do. He'd already done Butch and Sundance and he'd already done Barefoot in the Park. Downhill Racer, that's another one after Butch and Sundance, which was, I think, one of the best movies ever. He did Downhill Racer, which is an interesting movie about a ski racer that many people haven't seen. And then he did Tell Em Willie Boy is Here, which I don't remember seeing. But Little Foss and Big Halsey was a motorcycle movie. And I just remember seeing it when I was a very little kid. And Robert Redford's character was always walking around with a toothbrush in his mouth. And somehow he made it cool because I thought it was cool, because I remember, like, I'm gonna walk around with a toothbrush in my mouth and I did that. I don't think it was very cool, neither for him or me, but for some reason in my young brain, I thought that was. Yeah, that was cool. And then Jeremiah Johnson just rewatched that recently. What a great movie. This guy could carry a movie effortlessly. Oh, I remember the Candidate too. I'm just kind of going through him. That's an interesting movie about politics. The Way we were. Of course. The Sting. Come on, come on. The Sting. What, are you kidding me? And what about the Great Waldo Pepper? Great movie. And how about all the President's Men? Awesome. Brubaker. Remember Brubaker, the Natural? Come on. The Natural. I can't believe that's 1984. Again. The movies I rewatched that Robert Redford was in are all the President's Men, the Natural. I'll watch the Sting. I'll watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid again and again. And he directed the Milagro. Beanfields work. Good director, Ordinary People. This guy was what is great about what is Hollywood? I mean, Robert Redford will definitely be missed and remembered. And I would go watch any of those movies. If you haven't seen Butch Cassidy in the Sundance Kid in a while, just watch it. I mean, Newman and Redford together in both the Sting and that movie just. It just doesn't happen like that anymore. And maybe it does, but not at that level. Not at that stature. I mean, these guys. And maybe I'm an old man, but fucking just real movie stars just. I don't know. There's a gravitas to it. I don't know what to tell you. I'm sad he's dead, but he's one of those guys where it's like, same with Gene Hackman, especially the earlier stuff. Watch that work because it fucking holds up. And it's just. It's stunning. It's just. It's totally entertaining. It's just beautiful. All the President's Men. I might watch that tonight. Oh, my God. I want to watch a Robert Redford movie right now. You know what I was watching yesterday? I started watching that Charlie Sheen doc. Cause I couldn't just. I couldn't stay away. I could not stay away from it. I was curious the whole story, and they seemed to be giving it. But some of you remember I told this story when he went through that period, and you get the backstory in the doc, which I didn't get, when he snapped and went into that mania after he got fired from Two and a Half Men. And he started the Tiger Blood winning thing. And it was a very public spectacle, a very public train wreck. But I didn't know the backstyle. But I do know that I was pulled in by a promoter who I knew, who I've worked with at Live Nation. And he sort of said, look, I don't know if this is right or wrong, but Charlie Sheen's going to tour this insanity. And I was thinking, oh, it's definitely wrong. But look, I mean, if he's in a state where he thinks that's a good idea and you're gonna monetize it, what am I gonna do to stop you? But it doesn't. No. It all felt very not good. But he said he needs writers. He wants to put together a stage show. And I'm like, I'm not that guy. And he's like, will you just meet with him? I'm like, I don't know. And then I thought, like, yeah, why not go meet Charlie Sheen? So I met him in the middle of that at the Four Seasons. I sat with him in a suite, and, you know, he told me what he wanted to do, and I told him some ideas about some sketches or how to frame the stage show or whatever. And I was like, all right, that's that. You know, he's definitely out of control right now in a way I don't quite understand, but maybe I. Hopefully he doesn't want me to do it, but he did. He wanted me to come out to his house with a bunch of other writers. And I. A couple days later, so I went out to Brentwood or wherever the hell it was. And I just remember all I was looking forward to is I'd heard he had a lot of good cigars, and I got a cold that day, so he had this amazing humidor, and I couldn't even taste a cigar. And I felt sick. And there was a whole fucking thing going on over there. They had screens, there was a few other writers. Everyone was trying to put together this show for just crazy Charlie in the middle of this fucking mania. And I just. I was there one day, and I'm like, I'm out. It just. It was felt. Did not feel correct. And when you watch the doc, it was literally. He was out of control on substances, but also was jacked to the gills on steroids and really hitting the wall. But I, you know, they wanted me to tour with the show. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I actually told. I actually, I told him Kirk Fox would like to do it. So I got Kirk roped into that thing, but he did all right with it. But I just thought the whole thing was a sad spectacle of somebody that might not survive whatever this was, but the spectacle of this proverbial. Is that the word? I want? Kind of a mythic, you know, up. I mean, Charlie Sheen was synonymous. Was like with out of control. You know, his whole career, you know, he had been getting in trouble for drugs, for some domestic violence business, some more drugs, women. It was just. He was the baddest of boys. And what I noticed in the DOC was that people were so excited. There was a certain type of person just wanted to watch this train wreck that knew the guy was in trouble, but he was going down in flames, and he was, you know, going down shooting. And it was entertaining and a little menacing. And there was a type of person that was just like, go, Charlie, go. Burn it down, baby. It was just this mass of a type of anger and nihilism to seek that kind of entertainment, like to go see Charlie fucking on fire. And maybe on his last legs, people were just cheering him on. A lot of people. And I realized, like, this is part of the core of why Trump is president, that there is this idea of, like, you know, fuck everything, Burn it all down. You know, who knows what the fuck this Guy's gonna do, but I'm not gonna miss it. It's sort of like that guy I talked about a while back when I was tour, when I was touring the special. And I was. I think I feel like it was Skokie or one of it was a bluer city, maybe a bluer state. And I did my show, and if you watch the special, all the stuff I had said about Trump and where we are politically. And a guy came up to me after the show, and he said, I think I was the only Trump supporter here. And I said, well, did I get it right? And that guy said, yeah, man, he's crazy. And I didn't understand, like, how do you argue with that? Or what does that mean? Like, everything I was saying did not have great implications. But this guy was there for the fire. He was there for the train wreck. He was there to burn it all down. He was there for the nihilistic entertainment factor of watching a dude that gives zero fucks about anybody but himself, who's a lying sack of shit, who is erratic and dangerous and a fucking toxic bully, who's more than willing to micromanage the presidency to the point of shitting on celebrities, comedians, TV hosts, anybody. And this guy was like, fucking, yeah, man. It's just. You gotta love it, man. It's just fucking crazy. You don't know what's gonna happen. And I think you can kind of see the seeds of it in the frenzy around Charlie Sheen almost dying for entertainment. But, yeah, that's what I noticed. I don't know if you watched it. Did you watch it? So listen, Tracy Letts is a brilliant guy, brilliant actor, brilliant playwright, and a friend of mine. And as we kind of head towards the end here, I really wanted to get him back in here to talk. He is on that Sterling Harjo show, the Lowdown, which premieres September 23rd on FX. And I love Sterling Harjo. I think, you know, Reservation Dogs is still one of the best TV shows to happen in the last 20, 30 years. And I got the privilege of working with Sterling on Reservation Dogs, and now Tracy worked with them as well. So we'll. We'll talk about that. We talk about a lot of things. And it's always great to hang out with Tracy Letts. And now you can hang out with the two of us. Folks, here's the thing about travel. We want it to be easy. Like, for me, I'll try to fly out of Burbank whenever I can can, as opposed to go to lax. I deal with one car rental company. The bottom line is, anything I can do to make my trip easier, I'll do. And if you're hosting your place on Airbnb while you're away, now you can make that super easy for yourself as well. An Airbnb co host can take care of all the details for you. You get a high quality local co host to deal with your home and your guests so you can make some cash while you're away. And you don't have to worry about the listing or managing the reservations. The co host does all of that for.

[Tracy Letts]

For you.

[Marc Maron]

Then they're available for anything your guests might need while they stay there. So relax, enjoy your time away knowing that a co host is taking care of everything. Make hosting your home easy, and make some cash while you're at it. Find a co [e-mail] host all right. I have actually somehow successfully been somewhat detaching from the compulsive news reading.

[Brendan]

Good.

[Marc Maron]

Have you?

[Tracy Letts]

In fits and starts.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because I'm not sure, you know, after a certain point, you're like, well, this is the way it is.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's not like something's miraculously going to change the narrative.

[Tracy Letts]

And also, what are you going to do about it?

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's a good question, Tracy. What are you going to do about it?

[Tracy Letts]

You. I'm going to vote.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm going to give money to people I think can help, and I'm going to participate in my art and craft.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And I guess that's sort of what I'm wondering about. Like, you're writing a thing.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, the truth is, I just don't know. I don't know what else to do. I'm not.

[Marc Maron]

No, I know.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm 60 years old.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm not gonna, you know, what good does it do me to get out in the street with a sign or, you know, go down to the courthouse? Well, you're still young.

[Marc Maron]

Or, you know, you're too young for that. All the people out there with signs are the same ones that were out there in 68.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, I truly ask myself, Me too. What can you do? What? You know, you like to think you have more power than you do. You don't really.

[Marc Maron]

And also, there's this idea that, like, I'm kind of locked into about you permitted resistance that I believe that in an authoritarian structure that, you know, especially with an impulsive autocrat, that, you know, a lot of it is going to keep happening, but. But very little is going to get through the noise. And on some level, they're just sort of like, all right, let them. Let him run around with the signs.

[Tracy Letts]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Do you know what I mean?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

No, they'll. They'll shut down anything that's legitimate. Sure. Threat to their.

[Marc Maron]

Or they'll militarize everything. And people would just be afraid to go out with the signs. But what I do, like, I wonder that, too. So, you know, I recently kind of shot my mouth off here and there, and some of it went viral, and it was good. It was. You know, I did it for democracy, but I did it for the comics. But I also did it to promote my special. But there's a hunger for it, for.

[Tracy Letts]

Shooting your mouth off for people that.

[Marc Maron]

Can frame it properly and have the gravitas to shoot their mouth off. And if you're fortunate enough to have some sort of cosmic timing to where something gets through the noise, it is inspiring to people.

[Tracy Letts]

I think so.

[Marc Maron]

And. And I think it. It takes. I think that if people. Because right. The next. The next idea of. Of like, what can I do? I'm doing all I can. There. There's this. It's not futility, but. But on some level, we're living in this fucking thing, and we can only do what we can. And on some level, you have to accept that this is the reality we're living in.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And if you want to, you know, tear yourself up about it every day, you can. But as I say on stage recently, I'm like, if you think about it, there's probably someone in Hungary with your same job, and they're getting by okay.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Also, how can you tell the difference between those people who maybe inspire you or give you some hope and those people who are just monetizing opinion. Right. For takes or clicks or whatever?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

[Tracy Letts]

Right. I don't necessarily believe that I know anything about Bill Maher's ethos. I don't know what he really believes in. I know what he says to get people to click on his shit.

[Marc Maron]

Well, there's some selfless cats who are still making a living.

[Tracy Letts]

And on both sides. Right. This is not a partisan person say. Right. It's on both sides. It's like, I don't know what the fuck you're. You know, you're saying a thing because. Yeah, because otherwise. Because it's worth a lot of money. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene ran a gym, right. And now she's worth $10 million because she's a loudmouth.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Where does. Where does the belief end and the grift start. Yeah, I get that.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But as an artist, though, like, to me, like. Cause I don't remember the last time we talked, but I feel like playwriting is a noble pursuit, an elevated occupation.

[Tracy Letts]

I do, too.

[Marc Maron]

One that I believe has meaning and purpose.

[Tracy Letts]

I do, too.

[Marc Maron]

So how's that going?

[Tracy Letts]

It's hard. It's really hard. It's hard to write a play.

[Marc Maron]

So where does that fall into the menu of reasons to feel futility?

[Tracy Letts]

I went to the museum, to the Art Institute in Chicago recently.

[Marc Maron]

I was talking about that with Kit.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Went there. First time I'd been there in 10 years.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And it's an amazing museum. Not only the work they have in it, but architecturally, it's just so sort of constantly surprising in the way it's curated. You're looking at an amazing piece of art, and then you can just see around the corner into another room where there's another amazing piece of art.

[Marc Maron]

Is it an old building?

[Tracy Letts]

The modern wing is new.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Tracy Letts]

And. Well, new. Newish in the last 15 years or whatever. And it's a gorgeous piece of architecture.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

But there were so many people in there looking at the art, and some of them were kids and some of them were college kids, and some of them were like fat white haired Iowa farmer dudes who are being dragged in there by their wives or whatever, but they're walking through that place looking at the art.

[Brendan]

Yeah, that.

[Tracy Letts]

That. That's the most hopeful I felt in a long time. You know, there's just the fact that people are still interested in taking it in looking at something 100 years old, 400 years old, and seeing something in it that's confusing them, inspiring them, depressing them, whatever. It's just like, well, if we still got this.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, right.

[Tracy Letts]

You feel like if we still got this, we're okay.

[Marc Maron]

If there's still a desire, even on behalf of the most detached or seemingly uninterested, that makes them feel like, well, we have to go to the museum.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, not knowing why, but it's like, we're going to the city, we go to the museum.

[Tracy Letts]

That's right.

[Marc Maron]

And that's still in place.

[Tracy Letts]

You're saying it is still in place. It's in place until they start, you know, stripping the art off the walls.

[Marc Maron]

Well, they're just doing that in federal buildings. They're not doing it to city owned museums or privately funded museums.

[Tracy Letts]

Not yet.

[Brendan]

Right?

[Marc Maron]

Not yet, but they're definitely doing it.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's kind of crazy.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

It is. It's crazy. I mean, it's shit we haven't seen in our lifetimes.

[Marc Maron]

Well, not here.

[Brendan]

Right?

[Tracy Letts]

Not here.

[Marc Maron]

So when you go to the museum, what do you gravitate towards? Like, what do you feel like you need to see? Like, I. Like, I went. Like when I first went to. Like, I like the art, and I like painting, and I can let it in and I can be moved. I don't always know how to contextualize things, but I know that it's on this wall in the Prado or wherever, that. That it's a thing, and I should give it some time. I think context helps. It's not necessary. But there are certain things that I. If I go to a museum, I find comforting. Like it used to be when I was younger, probably because of my mom. It was the Impressionists.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And that was comforting. And then. And then you kind of branch out from there. More modern art, older art, whatever. But I personally don't know what it does to me, but I know that it's important to me.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, I guess I like the stuff that. I don't understand how it's operating on me. Like Rothko.

[Marc Maron]

Ah, he's my favorite.

[Tracy Letts]

I don't know how. I don't. What is this alchemy?

[Marc Maron]

He's my favorite. Have you been to the chapel in Houston?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then you just sit there going, like, what is. What is this doing?

[Tracy Letts]

Right. You just don't understand.

[Marc Maron]

I. I think he was at the edge of the fucking abyss. And the only thing he could do not to dive into it, which he eventually did, was make those pictures. Yeah, I think it kept him out of wherever he went.

[Tracy Letts]

But how does he know that just putting those two bars of color on a canvas is going to move us deeply, emotionally confuse us, confound us. How does he know that?

[Marc Maron]

Well, then you're assuming he's playing to the audience. I don't know that he is. I think he was looking for truth, and he had the chops to do it. I mean, it's the same with plays, isn't it?

[Tracy Letts]

I suppose. I suppose that's probably a good way to think about it, right? That you don't worry about playing to the audience. You think about what it is that.

[Marc Maron]

Have you seen those ones that, like, he was contracted to do a hotel lobby? The Seagram's pictures.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And this is for public space, where people are eating. And it's the darkest fucking shit I've ever seen in my life. They had him at the Tate in London all of them.

[Tracy Letts]

And I'm like, oh, I was there. I saw those.

[Marc Maron]

And you're like, this is. So he's not thinking about the audience. If he is, it's fuck you. Yeah, because those were like, purple and fucking, you know, like you. You were sitting in death.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So. So I guess that's what it comes down to. I mean, when you. When you write a play. But you're. You're not a. You're not. I don't. I haven't seen the minutes. But you're not an. You're not an abstract playwright.

[Tracy Letts]

Not per se. I mean, I like a little abstraction. I like. I like when. I like when a realistic work turns. When it turns becomes a little more abstract. It's like, oh, I thought I was watching a strict representation, a story.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, but wait, this isn't. Now we're in a different realm. Yeah, I love that.

[Marc Maron]

But like, when you. Because I'm just. I'm curious about this because I don't. I find it daunting. And I talked to an old friend of mine who said he set out to be a playwright, but I don't think he would have ever been a very good playwright. And I remember I had thought of a play when I was earlier, but younger, but I didn't have the follow through. And it was based on the lives of a family after the father had died in a plane crash and they had just received the black box recordings. That's all I got, so maybe you can run with it.

[Tracy Letts]

The family gets the black box recording.

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, they got the transcript.

[Tracy Letts]

Does that happen?

[Marc Maron]

I'm sure they get. Why wouldn't it.

[Tracy Letts]

We want you to hear just exactly what was going on in the cockpit on the flight. That your father die.

[Marc Maron]

Wouldn't they have to. Wouldn't they. Wouldn't that be part of it?

[Tracy Letts]

Would you want to hear that?

[Marc Maron]

I don't know.

[Tracy Letts]

Sure.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, but, you know, like, it would be. Maybe he said a goodbye. Maybe he said, do you want to.

[Tracy Letts]

Hear any black box recordings?

[Marc Maron]

Well, usually it's just sort of like we have a problem. Okay, we'll try that. We'll try that. And then nothing.

[Tracy Letts]

I knew a guy whose dad. His job was to investigate plane crashes.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And he said that every single plane crash he ever investigated, the first people on the scene.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

The scavengers.

[Marc Maron]

Really.

[Tracy Letts]

There are all you emergency vehicles show up. There are already people there picking through. Going through the shit.

[Marc Maron]

Luggage and whatever.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Huh.

[Tracy Letts]

Always.

[Marc Maron]

I bet you that's the same as battlefields.

[Tracy Letts]

Probably.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Do you remember in the. In the Wild Bunch, when was it Strother Martin? And they were like, oh, I gotta watch. That's mine. Yeah, but when do you. When you start to do the plaything, does it build out or do you have a story?

[Tracy Letts]

Generally, it's never the same twice. It's always different.

[Marc Maron]

But you as a playwright, because you do all these other things.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And do you get to a point where you're like, well, I'm taking this job. It's only for a few weeks. I'll get to the play later. Do you find that any part of acting is procrastinating?

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, sure, sure. I can't possibly write a play now. I've got to learn lines, order this drone strike.

[Marc Maron]

Because I have to believe that once you create plays that get the attention that you've gotten critically and you have a confidence in it, that. That. That has to be the thing that possesses you the most.

[Tracy Letts]

No, well, it's. I. It's certainly the thing I kind of recognize maybe has the most value ultimately. I mean, personal value. It's like, well, this is my. This is me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.

[Tracy Letts]

The other stuff is me acting. I'm translating somebody else's work. I'm sure, you know, I'm figuring something. I'm entertaining an audience. I'm telling a story. But the plays are me. That's who I am. So. Yeah. And even, like, being at Emmy shit this weekend, you know, it's funny, the people who'll come up to you and you'll be at some Emmy party and there's loud music and there's people, and you can't have a real conversation. And some people will want to sort of draw a circle around you to say, I need to tell you that August Osage account. This is not the place to say it, but August Os. You know, they need you to know. Yeah, I. I recognize that space, you know?

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, there's a different. Slightly different value system.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're kind of pulling you aside in this sort of like, horrendous display of nothing.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well dressed nothingness.

[Tracy Letts]

But everybody knows it, right? No, but everybody knows that's what it is. I don't think anybody.

[Marc Maron]

I find. I was at. I didn't see you. I went to the HBO party. Did you end up there?

[Tracy Letts]

I was at the HBO party last night.

[Marc Maron]

You must have gotten there later.

[Tracy Letts]

I got there earlier. I. I was out pretty quick.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because that always happens, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

All I know is that Goggins was everywhere I went.

[Brendan]

Yeah, he.

[Marc Maron]

I think he might be in my house right now.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, he cuts a figure. It's hard not to. It's hard not to see Walton.

[Marc Maron]

He's having the time of his wife, that guy.

[Tracy Letts]

He is, absolutely.

[Marc Maron]

And, you know, you.

[Tracy Letts]

I sat by him and the Emmys. He was my seatmate.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, how was that? Great.

[Brendan]

Yeah, he's.

[Marc Maron]

It's.

[Brendan]

Yeah, he.

[Marc Maron]

He's loving it.

[Tracy Letts]

I mean, I was surrounded by losers everywhere. You know, Carrie was losing on the left, Walton was losing on the right, and Jason Siegel losing over there. And, yeah, looking at my phone and my football team is losing, and everybody was. Everybody I knew was losing. I was just surrounded by losers.

[Marc Maron]

I try to see that on the faces of the early losers. Like now they're still stuck there for three hours.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Watching other people win.

[Tracy Letts]

Although in Carrie's case, it's like, now I can relax. You know, her category was pretty early.

[Marc Maron]

And, you know, that was sort of a surprise one. Was that the woman from the pit that won?

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, how did. How does one take that? Was Carrie fine?

[Tracy Letts]

It's hard to imagine being much more fine than Gary is with that stuff.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Really fine.

[Marc Maron]

That's good.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Good attitude about that.

[Marc Maron]

I was at the party, and then I went over to the Chateau because Nate had hosted a sort of after. After party there, and I felt like that one would be comedian.

[Tracy Letts]

Was that. Was that a scene? Was there a scene?

[Marc Maron]

No, there's people. I mean, you know, like the HBO thing. I went because I had the special there. And the high point was that, you know, Kit is mildly obsessed, but on the verge of very obsessed with two people. David lynch, who she cries over regularly.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

And Colin, he was not there at the HBO party.

[Marc Maron]

Arguably. Maybe he was.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Right. I think he's everywhere now. That's the way that works. And Colin Farrell. And I knew that, like, there was a good chance that Colin would probably be there. But what I didn't know. So Kit, you know her. And I go. And I'm like, I'll find him. She's like, just stop it. I don't even know if I could talk to him. That she's like, civilian. So it's like, you know, big fandom shit. And I see him over at the bar talking to Justin Theroux, who I don't really know. I met him years ago. And I walk up there and I'm just getting a Diet Coke. And Colin's like, mark. And I'm like, you know me, you Know, like, I still have that. Like, why would he know me?

[Brendan]

Yeah, right.

[Marc Maron]

Turns out he's a listener. Justin remembers me. He's a listener. Right. And I see Kid hiding, hiding away. And then he walks away. And then I realized I didn't compliment him on his work in the Penguin, which I thought was good. I go up and I say, you know, great job on the Penguin. I meant to tell that to you. And then I see Kid kind of float in, you know, kind of get the courage to do it, and. And to me, it was fucking great. It was hilarious. It was hilarious. And now he wants to go on a hike.

[Tracy Letts]

Nice. Does he live here?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I have to adjust my cock.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, sorry. That's. That's staying in. We're not. We're not cutting that out, even if you ask me to.

[Tracy Letts]

No, you don't have to cut it out. I just had to do it.

[Marc Maron]

Were you sitting on it?

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, it's just uncomfortable angle.

[Marc Maron]

See, if you didn't have an inversion to shorts, you wouldn't have that problem. I wouldn't have my way to wear shorts. But this is something that, like, being that these are the last episodes, you somehow or another, are the only person, really, that I have a friendship with that I met on the show.

[Tracy Letts]

I find that hard to believe. Have you done, like, a thousand of these fucking things?

[Marc Maron]

Almost 2000. Isn't that wild?

[Tracy Letts]

Why me?

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. What do you think?

[Tracy Letts]

I don't know. You kind of. When I did the first one, you kind of dared me to be your friend.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Tracy Letts]

There was a bit of a dare.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

On the way out the door, I was like, okay, so we had our talk, and you said, now we were gonna see each other. We were gonna be at the same event that night. We were gonna be at the SAG Awards.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But then I ran into you in the bathroom. And that's.

[Tracy Letts]

But before that, as I was. You said, now, if I see you at the SAG Awards tonight, are you gonna snub me? I'm like, what? What do I look like a guy who snubs people? I don't do that. So that night, I saw you in the bathroom and I went up and I gave you a hug.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And a friendship was born.

[Marc Maron]

That's right. But you did not adjust your cock in that moment.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, I didn't identify it.

[Marc Maron]

That would have been an awkward first meeting post, the desire to be friends. If you were like, just give me a second, I'll give you a hug. Like, my cock's in it. It's in the wrong direction right now.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm not going to snub you, but I am going to adjust my cock.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. It's interesting to me because I think about it. Because, like, what I find. What I'm finding is that, like, I still think I'm an outsider, really, because I'm not, like, a big celebrity. Right. So when I go out to these things last night, it was very gratifying. A lot of people were like, I'm sorry, the show's ending.

[Brendan]

But.

[Marc Maron]

But also, I find that people who I've had these conversations with, they. They resonate with them.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And they don't talk like this too often. So, like, you know, when Jude Law comes up to me out of nowhere and gives me a hug and just starts telling me how he's like, you know, things are changing as he gets older. We're surrounded by people. It's like, I'm a little more sensitive. And, you know, I. I care more. I'm like, wow. You know, I guess he. He had to get that out. And I'm that guy. It's kind of nice. But for you, I don't know. Like, I think you're, you know, funny. I like the acting, everything. But I think it was the playwriting. I just. I decided that you and I would be okay as friends. Like, you know, Josh Brolin gave me a cell number once, but I don't even think it was real.

[Tracy Letts]

Did he give you a fake number?

[Marc Maron]

I think so. I was gonna set him up with the flavored Zins. Cause I know a guy.

[Tracy Letts]

First of all, I have a couple things to say about all this. You say that you feel like an outsider. Don't most? I mean, I know that, you know, Ted Danson doesn't feel like an outsider.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

He feels very much like an insider. Tom Hanks feels like an insider.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, he's like, you know, he's at the top of the insider game.

[Tracy Letts]

Right. But aren't Most people aren't 80% of the people you might think are insiders actually outsiders who feel like outsiders even though you would identify them as insiders?

[Marc Maron]

I wonder. I mean, I think that on some level, most people in this business are mildly to extremely desperate and not sure where their next job is coming from? I think it's easy to elevate them. I still have a childish awe of actors and celebrities and, you know, people who make great things or I know, from television. And now that is, you know, working up against this Fact that I talk to them, I've seen them at the grocery store or whatever. But, you know, when I get to these places, that childish awe, you know, wins out. Like, I'm. I'm, you know, like, I see somebody, I'm like. And I'm moving through the crowd quickly.

[Tracy Letts]

To get to them or get away from them.

[Marc Maron]

No, to get to them. Because I want to be like, huh, me and you. Yeah, right. The validation. But I guess they feel like outsiders. But I think that the people that are, you know, like, I think once you get inside, maybe it's tenuous, but I do think, you know, you're inside.

[Tracy Letts]

Really?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You don't think so?

[Tracy Letts]

I don't know, because I've done, I don't know, five seasons of episodic television. You've done more than that. Maybe eight, ten seasons of episodic television?

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Tracy Letts]

You've had specials all over. You've played leads in films. You know, it's just like. I don't know how much more fucking insider it gets than that. You know, SAG has 96% unemployment. I mean, extremely successful.

[Marc Maron]

A lot of outsiders. Well, for me, I judge it on, like, you know, I was. I wrote about this the other day that, you know, if I have jealousy or I'm not grateful or I have resentment, what is it based on? And it's not. I don't want anyone else's life, Right. I don't want anyone else's lifestyle, right? But I would like more attention. I would like more love that I can resist.

[Tracy Letts]

From whom?

[Marc Maron]

You know, the people. The more people. Because, like, I have a great audience and I love them and they come out and see me do it, and I'm completely comfortable with that. But there is some part of me that thinks, like, I'm for everybody and I'm just not, and I'm okay with that. But I insist in my heart that there's more people that could use me.

[Tracy Letts]

Man, I'm so not for everybody. Yeah, I'm really not for everybody. James Taylor and I have been working on a musical for a few years now. And one of the first conversations we had about this was when I said, james, the appeal of your music is so broad, right? You're hard pressed to find people who say, well, I fucking hate James Taylor. I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but I don't know them.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I'd like to meet a couple.

[Tracy Letts]

The really broad. I actually fanned my hands out like this to show, like, this is your appeal. And I narrowed Them like this. I was like, this is my appeal. Sure. And I'm okay with that. I mean, at least I have some. At least it's not nil.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

There. There are people who like my work and like it passionately, but not like James. And I'm like, if we're going to work on a thing together, I think you got to be comfortable with knowing.

[Marc Maron]

That I'm going to neuter your appeal somewhere.

[Tracy Letts]

The truth is somewhere in between the two. Right.

[Marc Maron]

But what is that project? How would. I mean, how are you going to, you know, minimize James Taylor in your project?

[Tracy Letts]

I've done it. I've managed to.

[Marc Maron]

Congratulations. Finally someone has stepped up and taken him off his high horse.

[Tracy Letts]

We had a second workshop, and I kind of felt like we were ready to go into production. I thought, oh, well, this is like.

[Marc Maron]

A musical driven by his music.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Using his songbook, though, not the James Taylor story.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

And so we.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, interesting. So you're taking songs and you're building stories.

[Tracy Letts]

Yes. The template for this might be the Bob Dylan musical Girl from the north country, which Conor McPherson directed and adapted or wrote the original piece. And Mamma Mia. Actually, which I write, is not the ABBA story, but uses the music of abba. So it's using his music, but it's an original story. So we did this workshop. We've done a couple of workshops. And the last one, I thought, well, we're ready to go into production. Probably not on Broadway. We'll start somewhere, you know, we'll start at a regional theater.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I've certainly. Plays have been. Not as far along as this one that I've done that have gone into rehearsal. A couple of months later, the producers came back to me and said, we're not quite there. We need more time. The note being. It's a little too sad.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, there's no upwift.

[Tracy Letts]

A little too sad.

[Marc Maron]

Jesus Christ. If you just did James Taylor Story, it'd be the saddest fucking show in the world.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, that's why we're not doing the James Taylor story. In fact, my son, my little boy, he's seven now, but when he was four, he asked me to take off the James I was playing James Taylor. He asked me to take it off because it was too sad. Really.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't that interesting?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What were you playing? Like, Fire and Rain or something?

[Tracy Letts]

Whatever.

[Marc Maron]

You can hear it in the voice.

[Tracy Letts]

It's in the voice. It's in the chordal structure. It's in this. Something he discovered really early.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Man, I Talked to him. That story's harrowing. Drug addiction and depression. My God, I can't listen to Brian Wilson. I feel the mental illness. Can't listen to Townes Van Zant. Same thing. I fucking feel the alcoholism. And it's not fun party alcoholism.

[Tracy Letts]

It's not Jimmy Buffett alcoholism.

[Marc Maron]

No, it's like end of the rope alcoholism. Every song could end with him dying.

[Tracy Letts]

But James, even before those troubles. Cause, you know, I found these recordings of James doing his music when he was, I don't know, 19, 20 years old in England. He was doing a thing on the bb, just him and his guitar on the BBC. And I was struck by. He was just like a fully formed artist. I'm like, it's all there. The thing he's doing now at 76, he was doing then. And his response when I mentioned this to him was like, well, aren't most artists developed by that point? I was like, no, they're not. You're really an outlier. It's really uncommon to find somebody who is essentially the same. And he said, well, actually, he said, I figured something out. He said, I actually figured it out a little earlier. I figured it out when I was, like, 15.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

He figured something out that he's been able to continue to mine and explore.

[Marc Maron]

He figured out his zone of vibration.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, which is kind of heavy, but somehow uplifting enough.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

To where it resonates with everybody.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Which is part of the challenge of writing this piece.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

I've got to find. I got to find that zone of vibration. The piece.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But you are a lifelong fan. I am, yeah.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But not like Steely Dan.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, I. I love them both.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You can do that. That's fine.

[Tracy Letts]

I can love them both.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm more of a jazz guy. In fact, when. When James and I first started spending time together, the. It was so great to just listen to all the songs, and all my questions were about who's playing what instrument and how you get this guy and what, you know, and where were you recording this? You know, sort of the how of music. I was really interested.

[Marc Maron]

So you're more of a jazz guy.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, usually.

[Brendan]

Huh.

[Marc Maron]

Do you have a deep knowledge?

[Tracy Letts]

Deep. I mean, I'm not a.

[Marc Maron]

Because I. I do jazz myself.

[Tracy Letts]

Do you?

[Marc Maron]

In terms of listening.

[Brendan]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And because I'm mildly OCD and kind of a completist. Is that what you call it? That I realized at some point there's no way I can know all these guys. There's no way I can Know all the music. There's no way I can wrap my brain around the movements of the context of jazz. And so you end up with that, you know, the core group of about 20. Yeah, 25.

[Tracy Letts]

You can't know all of it. Anything. You can't know all. There's always another fucking room to explore.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, if they die, you've got a limited. You know, you've got the catalog. That's all you got. And then someone digs out shit they didn't want released. And then you're listening to stuff, the lost tape they would never put out, and somehow that's a window in to their imperfection. And so you realize, like, this guy just never stopped playing, right. And it was probably better if they just left the stuff that was unreleased alone.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

Springsteen was like, what do they. They're like five albums. They just.

[Marc Maron]

Now they're finding a worth of material just like.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, he just didn't put this out.

[Marc Maron]

Could you, could you imagine that? I said, like, if they put all my open mic sets on, like, we're releasing the stuff that Mark was doing for nine people in 1989, it'd be a fucking disaster.

[Tracy Letts]

Terrifying, right?

[Marc Maron]

In the documentary about me, you saw it. That footage of me doing stand up early on was the cringiest thing I ever saw in my life.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Had no love for that guy.

[Tracy Letts]

You don't go back and look at that stuff as a matter of course. Right.

[Marc Maron]

Why would you?

[Brendan]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, the last special I looked at, because I was proud of it. But like, seeing yourself. Would you want to see yourself acting in 1990?

[Brendan]

No.

[Tracy Letts]

No, I don't want to see myself now. I don't want to see. I might have told you I have a kind of reverse body dysmorphia.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Where I think I look all right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, you think you look great.

[Tracy Letts]

I think I look pretty good. And then I see myself. I'm like, what the fuck?

[Marc Maron]

I'm living alive. I felt like I kind of nailed it on the last special. I got the shirt right, got the hair right, got the pants right. But I wore it for months, the outfit.

[Tracy Letts]

So you're, you're a one man band. So that's, you know, you, you, you're stripped of all that other context, which is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes up there, you know, fashion wise, on television, off television, even last night.

[Tracy Letts]

But you know as well as I do, that don't mean.

[Marc Maron]

Means a lot to me.

[Brendan]

Me.

[Marc Maron]

If we go through my closet and I show you. The things I bought for a special, as opposed to just wear clothes. I was comfortable. The time I hired a stylist, it was kind of a mistake. Then there was the one time I said, why don't I just wear exactly what I wear, which was this shitty L.L. bean flannel shirt, which looked terrible. It's been a long road, but it.

[Tracy Letts]

Doesn'T matter at all to anything. The material is the only thing that matters. Material, the delivery.

[Marc Maron]

I think that we could argue on the vest. I chose for End Times Fun that. I think a lot of people probably had a problem with that.

[Tracy Letts]

Why are you stopping? I have a theory about why you're stopping. That's why I asked the question.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, honestly, the idea that people talking on microphones is some casual kind of process. The way people take this in and, like, well, why would he stop just talking? The way I do it is, for both better and worse, emotionally taxing. In some ways, not taxing, but it takes a lot out of me. And we do two of these a week. And the way my producer, Brendan, produces is meticulous. And we never missed a show, never missed a Monday and Thursday. The workload was real.

[Tracy Letts]

And.

[Marc Maron]

I think in terms of just talking and in terms of the media environment, I'm kind of. I'm a little tired of talking, in a way, and I'm a little tired of digging parts of myself out, which is what I do in order to share and relate. And my fear is that having not taken a break from it in 16 years, that, you know, I don't really know where I sit in myself because, you know, just by virtue of what you expect out of yourself and what you think the audience expects in terms of the monologues and stuff, you know, I'm kind of doing the same narrative of my anxiety, my heartbreak and all that stuff. And I feel part of it is me just wanting to keep it to myself for a bit and to feel what that space feels like. Also to challenge myself to know whether or not my creativity operates beyond immediate gratification or impulsive talking, which is the root of both of what I do. It's what this is. And it's also standup that, you know, I create all that stuff on stage. You know, I don't write in a formal way, and I'm just, you know, I know I'm talented and, you know, I've been playing more music, but I'm curious to see if I can apply with focus and intent my creativity to something outside of my own narrative.

[Tracy Letts]

That mostly Jibes with my theory.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What do you got?

[Tracy Letts]

I think that we all have a. Our public personality is curated.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Everybody, whether you're in the entertainment industry.

[Marc Maron]

Or not, you're talking.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But some people. More on purpose.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Some people have to. Right, right. It's mostly defensive. Some people have to.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And I think part of your appeal, not only as an artist, but also as a. Whatever this is. I don't know what you call this. Podcaster. Talker.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Conversation.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Conversationalist.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I think that, you know, there's curation involved in that as well. You. Part of the gig is I'm going to show you who I am, warts and all. But, of course, you don't really do. Nobody does that. Nobody said. Nobody shows everything. Nobody says. Let me tell you the fucking worst.

[Marc Maron]

I've gotten pretty close, dude. I've gotten pretty close, like, you know, between the books and this, like, going on the day after Lynn died.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, I've definitely done that in a lot of instances. You know, there are certain things that I kind of want to keep to myself, but they end up in the standup, you know, Like, I. I'm. I'm really kind of. I don't know where else to dig, and I don't want to become redundant, because at the core, you know, if what you're saying. What you're saying is true, I think for most people. But I feel like I've put a lot of it out there.

[Tracy Letts]

I do, too.

[Marc Maron]

And the stuff that doesn't get out there is usually Brendan protecting me from myself.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

But, like, at what point do you become. And that depletion from that, it's deep, you know, it's beyond exhaustion. I don't feel tired. I can still talk, but it's like I don't have the inner resource other than to become redundant in my patterns, which is my version of public personality. And I think it is with a lot of people. It's like with any band. When I look at my last three or four standup specials, I'm basically talking from the same place, just with different stories and words. So maybe I don't want to be locked to that anymore.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

Maybe you'd like to try it without the mic, in a sense. Right.

[Marc Maron]

Be a person in the world.

[Tracy Letts]

Try being a person in the world without the microphone a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

You know, when I first decided to stop, I thought, like, well, people really need my voice. And then, like, I go out to promote this special and I just talk without Brendan. Brendan. Protecting me from myself. And it's just interesting, you know, how much you Is still in me and. And you know, how much that if there's anything I do or I've learned to do is to be more diplomatic about reactive feelings.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So, you know, it would behoove me not to do much too much talking without Brendan, because for. I know from the past that I'll eventually get myself in some kind of trouble.

[Brendan]

Right?

[Marc Maron]

But. Yeah, but do you see? Do you. Do you think it's valid, my reason for stopping?

[Tracy Letts]

Sure.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Of course I'm gonna try to direct a movie.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm sure you're gonna do lots of things.

[Marc Maron]

I'm gonna act in a golf show.

[Tracy Letts]

You're gonna act in a golf show. You're gonna direct a movie. You're gonna. You're gonna continue to hone your standup. You've told me standup is always kind of the number one job. Right.

[Marc Maron]

But there's part of me that's sort of like, after that last special, I'm like, I said it. I've said it all.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. How much?

[Tracy Letts]

I told you I thought it's my favorite of yours.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. It was really a different type of work on that one, but I feel like I've said it. You know, people ask me, I'm like, it's in the donut. It's all in there. Just go. Go look at it. I already said it.

[Tracy Letts]

You want to do more acting, not just a golf show. You want to find other opportunities to maybe do stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Maybe. I don't know. I mean. Yeah, I mean, I. I've been presented opportunities.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But I. I don't love to travel. There's a miracle happened with the golf show. Miracle with the second season, because they picked it up and I was. And they couldn't shoot in Vancouver again, and because it's too late in the year, and they were looking for places. And I'm like, New Mexico would be good, you know, because I, you know, I grew up there, but now, then all of a sudden, it comes down to Atlanta or, like, Charleston, and I'm like, I can't fucking do that for three months. Three and a half months. And then, like, you know, I. Because I. I have this sort of zero fuckness. I start texting the showrunner. I'm like, I'll be miserable in Atlanta. And I won't be.

[Tracy Letts]

I won't be.

[Marc Maron]

I'll be difficult on set.

[Tracy Letts]

I promise.

[Marc Maron]

And then he texts back, well, that's a choice. And I'm like, yeah, it's my livelihood, you know, is what I said. But some miracle happened. They're gonna shoot it here.

[Brendan]

Wow.

[Marc Maron]

They got the tax break, so that's fucking great. I will try to find more work within the craft of acting to do with this guy. I will try to do that. I will try to. The guy in the golf show. That's what my assignment is. We've established a character now. It's, you know, hopefully the writing will match up with my desire to go deeper with that and we'll see.

[Tracy Letts]

Isn't that always the way it is, I suppose or. No, it's not always the way it is. Some people say, I'm going to get that check. Don't write too much stuff for me to do.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, no, I, I, I'd like more. I want more stuff.

[Tracy Letts]

Right. Some people don't. Some people are like, this is too much shit.

[Marc Maron]

The supporting role thing, it's like, it's like, it's great, but, you know, because it's not all on you, but a lot of waiting.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

What about you? How was the doing working with Sterling?

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, fantastic.

[Marc Maron]

Are you a regular on it? You all the way in it?

[Tracy Letts]

Well, the, of this first season, I, I don't know even know if there's a second season.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so that's what's coming out. Is it out?

[Tracy Letts]

It's not out yet.

[Marc Maron]

It's just the first season of the Lowdown.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I love that guy.

[Tracy Letts]

I do too.

[Marc Maron]

And what was your experience? Because my experience on, on the days that the week I did Reservation Dogs was, which I thought was the best show of the last 20 years.

[Brendan]

Yeah, me too.

[Marc Maron]

It was a way of thinking, a way of humor, a way of spirituality, a way of living that nobody knew about or paid attention to. And it was honest and I just couldn't believe it. So when he put me in it, and to see that most everyone on the set is native, it's like joyous.

[Tracy Letts]

I know, I know. It's remarkable. Look, I did something I've never done before in my life. I got my agents, I said, just get me on a call with that dude. And I got on a call with him, I got on a Zoom call with him and I said, I'll do anything.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I said, just based on that show and who you are and what your mission is, I'll do anything. I said, if you don't have a part for me, I'm coming to Tulsa and I'm going to get a food truck for the cast and crew. I'm going to Help you. You can't keep me out of it. And he actually, he sent me a script and he said, pick what you want to do. And I sent it back to him and I said, no, you pick. You tell me how I can help you. And it was everything I wanted it to be, everything I hoped. And I was not the only person making that call, you know, Tim Blake Nelson, also from Tulsa. Jeanne Tripplehorn, also from Tulsa. I mean, some of us, like you can't do this without us.

[Marc Maron]

Jeannie Tripple Horns from Tulsa.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And she's in. I haven't seen her in years.

[Tracy Letts]

She's in it.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How's she doing?

[Tracy Letts]

She's great. She's great in the show. And Ethan, Fantastic. All in. Yeah, all in. That dude.

[Brendan]

Yeah, he.

[Marc Maron]

What's the part?

[Tracy Letts]

His part?

[Marc Maron]

Your part?

[Tracy Letts]

I'm a bad guy.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What kind?

[Tracy Letts]

The kind with money.

[Brendan]

Ah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you're a high level bad guy.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, you have to watch a show.

[Marc Maron]

I'm excited about it.

[Tracy Letts]

I am too, man. It's so Tulsa. It's.

[Marc Maron]

So what part did you grow up in?

[Tracy Letts]

I was born in Tulsa, but never actually lived there. I grew up in southeastern Oklahoma in a little town called Durant.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And what was your experience as a kid with the native population?

[Tracy Letts]

Well, Durant, Oklahoma, is the seed of the Choctaw Nation. Yeah, you know, I just did one of those Finding your roots. Really?

[Marc Maron]

I did with Gates. Yeah, I did one of those. Pretty great.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, and it was pretty great. One of the things I wanted to investigate was the Native American blood I have, which is on both sides.

[Marc Maron]

You have it?

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, yeah. Mom and dad, really pretty extensive. And in fact, they were able to come up with a lot more history than they. Than they normally can. I said, normally when we find a lot of Native American blood, we hit a wall of history. But they were able to trace it back fairly far.

[Marc Maron]

They said that about my Jew, too. They said we got further back into Belarus than we ever had.

[Tracy Letts]

So, you know my experience.

[Marc Maron]

Where did you find out?

[Tracy Letts]

Well, you got to watch the show.

[Marc Maron]

I'm not going to give away the show. You're not going to know. You're not going to give away finding your roots.

[Tracy Letts]

It's gonna be so less interesting. Me telling it is gonna be less interesting than the way they're gonna fucking reveal it on the show. I mean, at some point they started talking about some Confederate asshole and I'm just like, yeah, whatever, okay. I don't care. You know, there's a whole story about this Guy is like, well, he went out the fucking. He. He got shipped off to a prison somewhere. And then. Then he got released as part of a prisoner exchange program. And then he re. Signed up with the Confederacy. And just at every step of the.

[Marc Maron]

Way, and they're like.

[Tracy Letts]

And happened next. I'm like, I'm sure he was fine. I'm sure he was absolutely fine.

[Marc Maron]

But what did you find out that surprised you? That's not something you get totally with the show because you're sitting there kind of in shock and you're like, wow. But, like, what. You know, what do you walk away from it?

[Tracy Letts]

So I knew about the Creek blood, the Muskogee Creek blood on my dad's side. And they found out some stuff about that. But then my mom had always claimed Cherokee blood, which we laughed about, because people who are from Oklahoma who claim Cherokee blood were always. It's always met with a shrug, like, it's what everybody claims.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Tracy Letts]

It's like, you know, how many fucking Cherokee blood. Turns out she did. Turns out she had Cherokee blood.

[Marc Maron]

How many generations back on these things?

[Tracy Letts]

A few. I mean, going back to, you know.

[Brendan]

Yeah, a few. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I was hoping for some Vikings, but I didn't get that.

[Tracy Letts]

Didn't get any more.

[Marc Maron]

No. I got like 99% Ashkenazi. I don't even know what the other 1% would be. I guess it's just, you know, we don't.

[Tracy Letts]

Blood is different than heritage. You know, they're two different things.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, sure. But I was hoping maybe the Vikings came into Poland, you know, did the.

[Tracy Letts]

Vikings go into Poland?

[Marc Maron]

Didn't they?

[Tracy Letts]

I don't think so.

[Marc Maron]

I think they made a. Maybe the coast of Europe somewhere. Like, I just. I thought, you know, maybe one coast of Europe there was maybe, you know, somewhere. It's possible. I gotta look at a map. I just hoping for a little, like, you know, because I consider myself kind of a.

[Tracy Letts]

There's your new. There's your new. There's your new.

[Marc Maron]

Your show. Coast of Europe.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Tracy Letts]

Mark Marin explores the coast of Europe. I'd watch that shit.

[Marc Maron]

But it's interesting growing up in New Mexico around indigenous people, because it was so. I imagine the presence in New Mexico is different than Oklahoma. Like in New Mexico. It was definitely in terms of art, heavily integrated all throughout my life. There were native painters, jewelry, all that stuff. But in terms of having the experience of, you know, being in their lives or them being in yours, there was. There was not much of that. You know, you would see them around, but you wouldn't you know, you didn't know what was going on and what the life was going to be.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, but again, we were them in a way. You know, don't get me wrong, I was raised in a very, very, for lack of a better word, white household.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

But, you know, my brother, my oldest brother is half quarter. His grandfather was full blood. So, I mean, so, you know, the presence was ubiquitous or part of us. Sure.

[Marc Maron]

Right, right.

[Tracy Letts]

I don't know how else to define it.

[Marc Maron]

It's.

[Tracy Letts]

I mean, and of course, it's a. It's a legacy of bloodshed and horror and.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, my God. Yeah. I was totally thrilled to be part of it.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, I told Sterling, I said, I got a little mad when I saw your show. When I saw Reservation Dogs.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I said, because I've lived. I lived in Oklahoma for the first 17 years of my life. And I was like, why have I never seen these people represented on tv?

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

How many fucking bad doctor shows have I watched in my life about white doctors or white cops? You know, I've seen that show. I got. I love some of those shows. It's not a problem with that. It's just, why did I have to watch a thousand of those to get to one reservation?

[Marc Maron]

That's the way I felt like. It's almost like, why did I wait my entire life to know anything about this? And the zone of it, like, the timing, the sense of humor, the spirituality, the actual environment of the reservation, what's left from the heritage and what carries on. Like, it's all in there in the most entertaining. And it was like. It was. I. I can't shut up about it usually.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, what did he say?

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, I know. No.

[Marc Maron]

Did you watch any of his movies?

[Brendan]

No.

[Marc Maron]

You should watch them because he made some good movies.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, I love him. You know, we shot a lot of. We shot a lot of the lowdown on his property. He's got a couple hundred acres, Keystone Lake in Oklahoma, and we shot some of it on his property. It was great fun. I love the crew. I love. You know, I loved being in Oklahoma. I love being home, to be part of it. I loved, you know, the sense of ownership of that. It's like, this is a place.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And the fact that he's making a community there where there wasn't one before, totally so exciting.

[Marc Maron]

Tim Blake came back. One of the great Oklahoma Jews. That was the greatest revelation to me when I had Tim on here.

[Tracy Letts]

What? That there are Jews in Oklahoma.

[Marc Maron]

Not only they're Jews, but, like, how they Got there. There was, like. I can't remember what year his family, like, settled there, but there was a Jewish diaspora, kind of. Not diaspora. Like they. They were. They. You know, they spread out.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Throughout the country so they wouldn't all be in the same place. Yeah, but that was great. Did you have scenes with him?

[Tracy Letts]

Never once.

[Marc Maron]

You know him.

[Tracy Letts]

Never met him.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I know. Weird. It's kind of weird. My dad died in a Jewish community, you know, community center. Jewish.

[Marc Maron]

No kidding.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because of that.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, it didn't help.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

The juice, they're. They get around. They're all over the place. So what. What. What's. What's on the acting docket for you?

[Tracy Letts]

Do you care?

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, because I want to. I want to learn.

[Tracy Letts]

I mean, I got some stuff coming out.

[Brendan]

I.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, I'm not here to talk about stuff. I mean, I'll tell you about my stuff. I don't care.

[Marc Maron]

I just want to know about the role. Roles that you've taken.

[Tracy Letts]

So I play a general in the new Kathryn Bigelow movie, A House of Dynamite, coming out soon.

[Marc Maron]

In what era?

[Tracy Letts]

Modern Contemporary.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so that. So you had to put on the uniform.

[Brendan]

I did.

[Marc Maron]

And do the whole thing.

[Tracy Letts]

I did.

[Marc Maron]

You must have. Must have been good.

[Tracy Letts]

That was a blast. Yeah, it was hard. It was a hard gig.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

It was almost all, you know, computer screens and having to do all this.

[Marc Maron]

In front of green screens.

[Tracy Letts]

All the. No, not green screens. Actual computer screens. Actual monitors in which I'm, like, talking to. Everybody I'm talking to is on a screen.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And having to talk that kind of shit. Nadsat language, you know, operationalize and, you know, shit words like that. This is just like a language I don't fucking speak. So it was really hard. At one point, the ad came up to me. We were shooting. The ad came up to me between takes.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Catherine was back over by the monitor, and he said, catherine wants to know why you keep looking down? And I said, because I'm reading my lines. Literally.

[Brendan]

Got them.

[Marc Maron]

Weren't fooling anybody, were you? Get away with it. This will be okay.

[Brendan]

Here.

[Tracy Letts]

It's hard. I ran up against the same thing when I did the big short, when you have to learn a different language.

[Marc Maron]

Dude, you're so funny in that.

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, thanks.

[Marc Maron]

I rewatched it.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because I found it annoying the first time I watched it.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then I watched it again. I liked it better. Then I watched it a third time, and I was like, this is fucking great.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, it's really good.

[Marc Maron]

I Mean that scene where it's like, you can give us back our money.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, yeah, it's really good. But for all of us, it was just like, we don't. We don't speak that language.

[Marc Maron]

You don't speak money?

[Tracy Letts]

We don't speak money. We don't. And we don't. Sure. Don't speak military. We don't know that language.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I had a couple of dudes on set with me who were the real deal. Like, they're the guys, they're the technical advisors.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Tracy Letts]

They've sat in the seat I'm pretending to sit in. So it's fun. It was hard gig.

[Marc Maron]

It was funny because. But, I mean, when you read the script, what did you realize about that character that got you there?

[Tracy Letts]

Well, it's funny. The script for Catherine's movie is very. It's very process oriented. It's really a procedural. It's about here what these people in government do. So the job in some way is to find a human being who's doing that job, performing this function.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

And so just find the moments where a little humanity kind of leaks out, creeps out for all of us. It's a real ensemble film. Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Jared Harris, Greta Lee. There's a lot of really good people in it. But that's. It's really. The gig is just to find the human being who's making these decisions, who's making these calls.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, the guy I play doesn't have my. He doesn't think the way I do.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

So that's always fun to think. Think the way somebody else thinks.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And that. And that's what it really comes down to. And that's on the page.

[Tracy Letts]

It's always on the page. You know, people ask me about all the research. I'm not a big research guy. I'm always kind of like, I just put on the costume and act like I pretend I'm the person.

[Marc Maron]

Find the feelings.

[Tracy Letts]

Find the feelings. And if it's well written, they're there, it's there.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And in fact, I think it really served me on that picture in particular because the, like, the other generals were saying, the guys I was talking to, they were like, you're not answerable to anybody. You do whatever the you want. You know, there's no.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

There's no protocol that you, you know, you're the general. You want to drink a coffee? Drink a coffee. You want to stand up, Stand up, sit down.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

You don't have to salute. You're Indoors, you know, you do what the fuck you want.

[Marc Maron]

You're the guy.

[Brendan]

Yeah, that's good.

[Tracy Letts]

That's a good mindset to get into.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, it's amazing. The props, the hair, the costume, the set, the lighting, the cutting. So much of it. Just doing all the work for you. You kind of don't have to do shit.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You just have to listen.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Listening, which is a skill. Which is.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I remember reading about Mickey Rourke one time that he kept a little rock in his pocket. His whole thing was, like, just trying to keep all of his focus at all times on the rock in his pocket to what ended. So he wasn't thinking about, oh, stay, present. All he's thinking about is a rock in his pocket. I don't even know if that's true. If Mr. Roarke, if you're listening and I'm wrong, I apologize.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, my God. Just the rock in his pocket. I don't know.

[Tracy Letts]

I don't know. Maybe he was adjusting his cock.

[Marc Maron]

Are you doing that again? I am.

[Tracy Letts]

Maybe I don't have good underwear.

[Marc Maron]

Man.

[Tracy Letts]

I wore the wrong underwear for Marin.

[Marc Maron]

So are you thinking about a play?

[Tracy Letts]

James Taylor. I've been thinking about James Taylor.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Tracy Letts]

And I'm trying to get, you know, some more productions of the Minutes would be good. That was my last play.

[Marc Maron]

I just got an email from a guy who said it's going up in Vermont.

[Brendan]

Ah.

[Tracy Letts]

Maybe my play, Mary Page Marlowe is opening in London in a few weeks. That's the one I told you about that Andrea Riseborough and Susan Sarandon are doing.

[Marc Maron]

And this is the first run.

[Tracy Letts]

No, no, it happened at Steppenwolf 10 years ago. So it's the first London production. So I've been over for a few rehearsals of that, and I'll go back over for a few previews. I'm excited about that. And then Carrie is doing Bug. We were doing Bug at Steppenwolf when the Pandemic hit. It was also the show we did to come out of the Pandemic. But we're finally moving that production to Broadway that's coming. Opens in January.

[Marc Maron]

But as a guy who writes plays.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like, I think we had a conversation about, you know, writing during COVID Right. And, you know, what does one do? How does one, like. Because it seems to me that a good play that, you know, isn't made specifically as a pandering product.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Must somehow, you know, speak to the impact of. Of time and reflect on that, like, in terms of, like, you know, what we've Gone through as a country or whatever. Right. Even if it's abstract. Is that a conscious thing?

[Tracy Letts]

Well, I'm certainly conscious of the world I live in.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

I mean, and no matter how much news I'm taking in or not taking in on any given day, what's going on in the world.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

My response to what's going on in the world is perhaps not especially sophisticated. Right.

[Marc Maron]

But it's human. You're human.

[Tracy Letts]

It is human. And I try and contextualize that some. That's what the Minutes was supposed to be about for me. You know, I wrote a play about fascism and nobody came. It's kind of how I feel.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What, to the Minutes?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

The Minutes is very much about fascism.

[Marc Maron]

When did you write that?

[Tracy Letts]

2016 first appeared on stage. 2018. And we took it to 2020 and got shut down by Covid and came back from it on Broadway.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

With a new cast. 2022 or something.

[Marc Maron]

But when you look at the news and you think about what's going on, when you're conceiving of a possible play, do you think about a person, a phenomenon? Do you think about, like, what would the world be like through these characters eyes? No.

[Tracy Letts]

I don't know. I'm telling you, man, I got 10 plays up on the shelf. They all started different ways. I don't know how the fuck I wrote them. I don't know how anybody writes a play. I look at it, totally daunted by it. I'm like, I don't know how anybody writes a fucking play. I don't know how to do it. I never did it the same way twice. I'm not good at it. I don't know when to write. I don't know how to write. Ask me about Mary Paige Marlowe. I'm like. I was sitting in a director's chair in Cape Town, South Africa, working on Homeland, and my mother had just died and I started writing this play on an island. That's not how you write a play. Tennessee Williams didn't do that. I don't know how the fuck you do it. Eventually became a play.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

Linda Vista started out as just like a noodling exercise on the keyboard. I was just on the. It was just like a conversation between two guys and slowly. I'd never written a play like that that just turned from this conversation with two guys into this two and a half hour play about this guy's unraveling life. None of them are written the same way twice.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah. I mean, I talked to Lipside, who Says hi.

[Tracy Letts]

Hi, Sam.

[Marc Maron]

He generally starts with a sentence and builds out.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, right. You know, you get a good idea and you can build out from there. Yeah, I've written, I don't know, I've written 10 plays in a 30 year career. I'm not that prolific in terms of.

[Marc Maron]

That's cause you're avoiding it with acting.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, that and a little screenwriting mixed in and a little improv and Blu Ray collecting and whatever the hell else. You know, I've got two kids too, which is a. You know, I've got two little kids which is a.

[Marc Maron]

How's your.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How old is the second one?

[Tracy Letts]

Seven and four.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Seven year old boy. Four year old.

[Marc Maron]

How's the Blu Ray collection?

[Tracy Letts]

Extensive.

[Marc Maron]

Like a thousand.

[Tracy Letts]

Eleven thousand five hundred.

[Marc Maron]

What? I didn't even know there were that many. Do you have all the Blu Rays? I definitely.

[Tracy Letts]

I don't, I don't. It's my, it's.

[Marc Maron]

Do you watch them?

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, we watch, we watch pretty much a movie every night. Yeah, we down. We watch a movie.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's like it's very important to do that now.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, again, what we were talking about, as long as we're taking something, you know, as long as we're experiencing story.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, we, I go out of my way.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean we went to. To see the, the director's cut of Close Encounters at the Egyptian for American Cinematheque, which does great stuff.

[Tracy Letts]

How'd you like it?

[Marc Maron]

It's great.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Because I don't have any recollection of seeing that in the movies ever.

[Tracy Letts]

Really.

[Marc Maron]

We just went to see the 50th anniversary of Cuckoo's Nest.

[Tracy Letts]

Oh yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Fucking great. I hosted a screening of McCabe and Mrs. Miller for the American cinematic Great print. I wasn't even of age to have seen that in the movie theater. Yeah, I'm not sure that I had. Yeah, it's spectacular.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

If you watch good movies like I just watched Trouble at Big Rock or I can't remember, it was a Spencer Tracy. Oh, and Robert Ryan.

[Tracy Letts]

Bad Day at Blackrock.

[Marc Maron]

Bad day Blackrock.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Great.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Why don't you remake that movie?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, no, I, I, Yeah, that's.

[Marc Maron]

Where you could totally play now.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, I'm pitching it to me.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

Am I writing it or am I playing Spencer Tracy?

[Marc Maron]

Well, would you rather do that or Robert Ryan?

[Brendan]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

Robert Ryan has to do more physical stuff. I feel like.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Tracy Letts]

He has to do a. Get more.

[Marc Maron]

It's interesting that he was such a great heavy, but he could also Play.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like Robert Ryan in the Wild Bunch is just a marvel.

[Tracy Letts]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

It's some funny, right?

[Tracy Letts]

Those guys, when they made bad day at Blackrock, were probably like. Like 40, right? They were probably like 20 years older. 20 plus years younger than we are now, you think?

[Marc Maron]

I don't know.

[Brendan]

He.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, maybe they looked older. Spencer was older.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Different time because there's that moment where Spencer's got to do a little karate business.

[Tracy Letts]

Because when we were kids, 60 and 60 plus was a old.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And truth is, it. It really is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. That's the big secret.

[Tracy Letts]

It still is.

[Marc Maron]

It is. I'm not enjoying it. No, I mean, I. I enjoy it to a degree, but, like, the clock. The clock.

[Tracy Letts]

Hey, man, 60 bothered the. Out of me. I just turned a few months ago and it bothered the.

[Marc Maron]

I'm sorry I missed your birthday.

[Brendan]

How did.

[Marc Maron]

How did it bother you? Like what? You're like, I don't.

[Tracy Letts]

I don't like that number. I didn't like. It's never bothered me before in my life. 60 really bothered me. And I got little kids, so you can't help but do the math. You know, it's like the math becomes really easy. Yeah. You turn 60 and you're like, oh, I can pay. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I know how that goes around.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I know. Some guy told me to get a kitten to stop my other cat from beating up on the old cat. I'm like, I'm not. I can't bring another. It's gonna outlive me. It's a cat.

[Tracy Letts]

You know, Carrie is 15 years younger than me.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And her people live a very long time.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, so you're good. The kids will be fine.

[Tracy Letts]

No, no. What I mean is, she's the. She. She lost three grandparents in a year. They were all in their mid-90s.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

So her people live on forever.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And she's 15 years younger than me, and she's a woman, and woman live longer than men.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

So I'm like, honey, you're gonna have 40 years after I'm. You're gonna have a whole fucking huge life.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What was the impetus for this conversation?

[Tracy Letts]

I. The only.

[Marc Maron]

Was that the speech you gave at your 60th birthday?

[Tracy Letts]

The only thing I asked was. I said, don't marry some guy who's gonna do something stupid with my plays.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, okay. Right.

[Tracy Letts]

He was gonna, like, do some stupid.

[Marc Maron]

Not with your kids.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But with your. Yeah, with your plays.

[Tracy Letts]

August, Osage, county on ice. Don't marry that guy.

[Marc Maron]

How have the kids changed your outlook?

[Tracy Letts]

Well, they're just. They're just amazing. I mean, my son is a little weirdo. He's into weird stuff and he's very sensitive and I worry about him all the time.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

And my daughter, my 4 year old just has ice water in her veins. There's not a sentimental bone in her body. She's entirely the opposite of my son. She says the most chilling shit. She said to my son, you know, again, he's three years older than her. She said to him, haskell, you will never be loved.

[Marc Maron]

Is she reading your plays?

[Tracy Letts]

And he's totally susceptible, you know, he's just like, no.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, God. That's pretty cold, dude.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, she's cold blooded.

[Marc Maron]

How do you, how do you bounce back from that conversation?

[Tracy Letts]

When she, when I snuggle, you know, my son is very snuggly. He wants to snuggle up and cuddle and stuff at night. My daughter's like, it's okay. You can, you can leave.

[Marc Maron]

Take a break.

[Tracy Letts]

You can leave.

[Marc Maron]

Good for her. All right, buddy.

[Tracy Letts]

Well, did we do it? Did we talk about it?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, we talked about it all. Mortality, creativity, why I'm ending the show. Acting a little bit about movies, the importance of movies. What have you been watching was the last movie you watched?

[Tracy Letts]

Edit out this long pause while I try and remember the audio.

[Marc Maron]

This is what makes. This is what makes audio so good. Is that pensive long pause.

[Tracy Letts]

The last movie I watched was a rewatch of Park Chan Wook's decision to leave.

[Brendan]

Wow.

[Tracy Letts]

From about three years ago.

[Brendan]

Good.

[Tracy Letts]

That's a fucking great movie. And he's got a new one coming out, so I kind of wanted her. You know, the first one is. The one I just watched is so elliptical. It takes you a while to sort of catch up to what's going on while you watch it. So I wanted to watch it a second time. So I was like, kind of knew where I was. A little bit more locate myself in it a little more.

[Marc Maron]

That's good.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I watched Akira Kurosawa's. What is it? High, Low.

[Brendan]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because I watched Spike's version and I talked to Spike.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I gotta rewatch or watch for the first time some, some Kurosawa stuff.

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, man, that's the, that's the good stuff.

[Marc Maron]

It really is, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I've never. I don't think I've seen Yojimbo.

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, that's the shit.

[Marc Maron]

I gotta do it. I mean, I remember seeing Rashomon at some point.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And Seven Samurai. But I haven't seen Yojima.

[Tracy Letts]

Yojimbo is the one that. I think that he sued Sergio Leone because Fistful of Dollars is such a direct ripoff. I mean, some shots are the same. It's really a ripoff.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

He sued him and won.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good for him.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's funny, you get to a certain age, all the old movies, I. I've.

[Tracy Letts]

Kind of realized that about myself. It's like, I got to go back about 30 years to start really hitting the patch. After about 95, my interest starts to. Starts to really wane.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's a couple of things.

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

There are.

[Tracy Letts]

Oh, there's great, great artists everywhere you look.

[Marc Maron]

Always looking forward to this new Paul Thomas Anderson thing.

[Tracy Letts]

I am, too.

[Marc Maron]

It's going to be good, I think. How about that? Like, you know, celebrating Pynchon. Like, you know, he loves the guy.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, I rewatched Inherent Vice because I was working with Owen.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

That was so funny.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because you remember Owen's character.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Kind of shrubs up places because Owen never watches himself. And I'm like, I thought it was a pretty good role for you. And he's like, I didn't understand that movie. I'm like, that's perfect for the character.

[Brendan]

Yeah, right.

[Marc Maron]

Did you ever read Pynchon?

[Tracy Letts]

Yeah, somewhat. When I was too young to know what the fuck I was reading. You know what I mean? I haven't gone back and reread it since I was a. Yeah, I like.

[Marc Maron]

That Paul finds some sort of truth in there, because it's tricky stuff. Very.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

All right, pal. What are you gonna do now? When are you going back?

[Tracy Letts]

Go back tomorrow morning.

[Marc Maron]

And how's it living up in there in the country?

[Tracy Letts]

It's great. You know, we did all the math of where we should live, and we got it right because the kids are really loving it. They really thrive there. I mean, I feel like an east coast imposter. I guess I am. I've never lived in a. Yeah. I've always lived in the central time zone. So now I live.

[Marc Maron]

And Chicago's indelible.

[Tracy Letts]

It is. I was just back there with some friends not long ago, and just some people had never been there before. So to be the tour guide and show them around was just a great feeling.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

I feel very much like a Chicagoan who now lives on the East Coast.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Tracy Letts]

But we live in a beautiful place. Beautiful area. The people are really nice. Yeah. Everything's great.

[Marc Maron]

You seem good. Thanks for coming by.

[Tracy Letts]

Mark Maron. I love you. I'm sorry that your show's going away, but I understand.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I love you, too. And you'll probably be talking to me more, whether you like it or not. Gonna need friends. Tracy. This is what you signed up for.

[Tracy Letts]

I'm gonna like it.

[Marc Maron]

Tracy Wetz, My pal. The Lowdown premieres next week, September 23rd on FX. Hang out for a minute, folks. Hey, people, don't forget. If you want all the WTF episodes ad free and nearly 300 bonus episodes, sign up for the full WTF archives through Supercast. Go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF. Next week, we've got one of the people who helped inspire wtf. Jimmy Pardo podcast Trailblazer is back in the garage.

[Tracy Letts]

Somebody will say to me, hey, on the show, you said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I go, I don't remember anything that happened on show. I've been doing this thing 19 years.

[Marc Maron]

They go, it happened Monday. Yeah, like, okay, well, again, I've done a lot of shows. I don't. Yeah, I'm the same way. Because I, you know, once I talk, it's out, you're in it, and then my producer takes the rest. So if you're just asking me to remember a conversation from, you know, 15 years ago, it's not gonna happen. Me neither. So let's talk about the evolution. I do have to give you a lot of credit. Cause when we started this, which we're now kind of wrapping up, you were already dug in and doing it and an inspiration. Thank you. And you kind of had a. You set a precedent and you helped us in kind of figuring out how we were going to approach ours. You're really one of the OGs of this wave of podcasting. I am doing my best not to get emotional, because that's very kind of.

[Tracy Letts]

You to say thank you.

[Marc Maron]

It's true. And I will say this publicly, and I do say it publicly on my show.

[Tracy Letts]

There are some folks that forget that.

[Marc Maron]

I was in early on podcasting. And you never do. You give me credit everywhere you go, and it means the world to me. That's next week on wtf. And if all goes well today, I'll also be recording an episode for next week with a comedy genius who we never had on the show before. Fingers crossed for that. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by acast. Here's some sludge. Sam Sa. Sam.

[Brendan]

Sa.

[Marc Maron]

Sam Boomer Lives Monkey and La Fonda Cat Angels Everywhere.