- 5 days ago
Adam Sandler ('Jay Kelly'), Dwayne Johnson ('The Smashing Machine'), Jacob Elordi ('Frankenstein'), Jeremy Allen White ('Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere'), Mark Hamill ('The Life of Chuck'), Michael B. Jordan ('Sinners') and Wagner Moura ('The Secret Agent') join THR in our Actor Roundtable.
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00:00When you were making Star Wars and you were on that set, did you have a sense, like, this shit, this could be pretty, or were you like, what the fuck?
00:09Well, what was interesting is I got the part without having read the whole script.
00:13They only gave you a scene.
00:15Okay.
00:15And I'm thinking, who talks like this?
00:17I mean, is this a send-up of Flash Gordon or whatever?
00:20Yeah.
00:20Harrison tested with me.
00:22I said, you were in American graffiti.
00:24I mean, is this like a very, hey, whatever, let's just do it.
00:30I said, you were in American graffiti.
01:00Hi, everyone.
01:12I'm Scott Feinberg, and thank you for joining us for The Hollywood Reporter's annual Actor Roundtable.
01:17I am so thrilled and honored to be joined by seven world-class actors who have given outstanding performances in 2025 films.
01:25To begin with, I thought, Dwayne, maybe we could talk about the fact that nobody before you had really made this jump from wrestling to A-list movie stardom in the way that you did.
01:33One day, you're in the ring at WWF, now WWE.
01:37Then you get a seven-minute cameo in The Mummy Returns.
01:39And then the next year, you are the star of a spinoff.
01:42And I guess I wondered, was this all just kind of a happy accident, or was this planned that you would make this pivot towards acting?
01:48Well, I think it was planned by something more powerful than me, for sure.
01:55Destiny, I believe, in the universe.
01:57But I also, I wanted to grow.
02:00And I wanted to challenge myself.
02:03My first acting gig was The Mummy Returns with Brendan Fraser.
02:07We were shooting in Morocco, in the Sahara Desert.
02:10And I was so sick, because I went over there and I probably ate something I shouldn't have eaten.
02:17So I caught that thing.
02:19And it's 110 degrees.
02:22I'm freezing.
02:24I'm wearing a blanket.
02:26Stephen Summers comes over, the director.
02:27Hey, you okay?
02:28I'm like, yeah, I'm okay.
02:29Let's do it.
02:30He calls action.
02:31We have our scene.
02:32And I had never acted before.
02:33But he calls action.
02:34And when he says cut, you know, we hear the, oh, you got bit by the acting bug, the thing that happens.
02:43When he yelled cut, I went, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, in that moment.
02:48Did you find that the things you had learned in the ring were transferable to acting?
02:53I think performatively, yes.
02:55In wrestling, it's very big and over the top as you're performing for everybody for a stadium.
03:01But I think probably one of the main takeaways from wrestling was it really forced me live.
03:09And you guys know this in theater.
03:10It's like it forces you.
03:12It's almost like a forcing mechanism to listen.
03:14Yeah.
03:14To really make sure that you're really honing in on that skill set of just really listening to the audience and keeping you on your toes.
03:21Yeah.
03:21Michael, you started out as a child actor in really terrific stuff like The Wire and Friday Night Lights at a young age.
03:28But when you were around 19 or 20, I believe, when you came out to L.A. to try to break into the movies, and there was not much interest from the agencies at that time.
03:37I'm sure they regret it badly now.
03:40But how did you not let that get to you, and how did you turn it around to build what is now a great film career?
03:46Man, at that age, you take rejection, you know, personally.
03:52I guess I did anyway.
03:54And used it as a healthy chip on my shoulder, you know, to motivate myself to continue to work hard and kind of stay locked in.
04:02But also, it kind of fortified this belief of what's for me is for me, you know what I'm saying?
04:07Nobody can take my blessings away from me, and I can't take anything away from anybody else.
04:11So there was this kind of firm belief that I was walking this path, and I had a purpose, and didn't know exactly where I was going to end up or what exactly that might have been.
04:19But that I was on the right path, and I need to continue to work hard to continue to do that.
04:24And as you're trying to figure out what type of actor you want to be or what type of career you want to have, you know, whether it's a supporting actor or lead or, you know, doing ensemble, you know, television shows, not really knowing where exactly you're going to end up, you start to look at other actors that you admire, you know, careers, movie choices.
04:43And you try to craft your own path that way, and learning the power of no, which is not a luxury that we have in the beginning often.
04:55My path, kind of the choices that I was able to make earlier on, roles in projects that, you know, lasted in casting directors' minds and the right producers and the right people that ultimately opened up doors and opportunities to me down the road.
05:09So the power of no was very, very helpful in doing what you've got to do until you can do what you want to do.
05:15And then when I was at the point where I could actually choose projects a bit better, you know, making those right choices, not chasing money, you know, doing it for the right reasons, you know, building the house and people will come.
05:28That's kind of always been my bigger picture approach.
05:30Mark, how at the age of 17 did you just kind of accidentally wind up in L.A.?
05:36And then how, just eight years later, did you wind up playing a gentleman named Luke Skywalker in Star Wars?
05:43I did a show at the Zephyr Theater.
05:46It was called the Horseshoe Theater on Melrose.
05:49And it was a musical written by Michael Franks.
05:53And you talk about luck.
05:54There was somebody whose daughter was in the show who worked for Neil Diamond.
05:58And after the show ran, he said, I don't know if you're serious about this, but I think you could have a chance if you're really serious.
06:05I said, oh, I'm really serious.
06:07So he introduced me.
06:08I went and did scenes, a comedy scene.
06:11I did a monologue from Your Good Man Charlie Brown is Snoopy.
06:14And I had somebody come in and read with me.
06:16And I did a scene from The Subject Was Roses, the Martin Sheen part.
06:21And so by the December of the first year of the summer I got here, I had an agent.
06:28Now, the Vietnam War was raging.
06:30So if you dropped out of school, off you went.
06:33So it was frustrating for my agents because I'd say, I can't go out on an audition for fill in the blank.
06:40Because, you know, if you missed three classes, they would drop you.
06:44So it was frustrating for the first two years.
06:47But once I did work in the summer, the second summer I was here, I did three TV shows.
06:54But you look back and I talk to young people and I say that, first of all, if there's anything you like nearly as much, do that.
07:02Because if you want to do it professionally, you're in for a lifetime of rejection.
07:08Not because you're not talented, you're too tall, you're too this, too that.
07:13Perseverance and tenacity is almost as important as talent.
07:17But if no one can talk you out of it, you have a much better chance of succeeding if they can talk you out of it.
07:25Great.
07:27Big time.
07:27Adam, you were at NYU and already starting in stand-up and acting, I believe.
07:33But I guess it was really SNL that led to the beginning of movies for you.
07:36Is that right?
07:37Yeah, yeah, yeah.
07:37Like all of us, got excited, wanted to be.
07:41I think I used to, you know, I watched Aykroyd and Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy and Rodney Dangerfield.
07:49All those guys, I used to just watch their movies over and over.
07:52And I was like, oh, man, that's something I'd like to be a part of.
07:56And I did stand-up, got on SNL, lucked out.
08:01They put me and a couple of my buddies on there.
08:03And then I just kind of wanted to do with Eddie Murphy.
08:06I just wanted to live that life.
08:08You say Adam Sandler and people think of all the times you've made them laugh and feel good.
08:11And that's very well-deserved.
08:13But Uncut Gems, Spanglish, Hustle, Rain Over Me, and these two movies with Noah Baumbach, the Meyerowitz story isn't the one we're going to come to, Jay Kelly.
08:22I guess Paul Thomas Anderson was maybe the first person to see that you had dramatic possibilities as well.
08:27You know, in the back of my head, I was like, yeah, it would be fun to do a serious movie someday.
08:31And, you know, my grandmother used to say, you're the next James Caan.
08:36And I'd be like, oh, yeah, I'll do that.
08:38And so then Paul wrote this movie, and he kind of invited me into this world, and I've been lucky.
08:45Wagner, in Brazil, you were well on your way to success many years ago there.
08:50Just one example, 2007, Elite Squad, a film that won the Berlin Film Festival.
08:56And along comes the project that would put you on the map internationally.
08:59This all depended on Americans finally being at a point where we were ready to watch something with subtitles, right?
09:06Oh, it was a big discussion back then.
09:08We were like, this might work someplace, but not in the U.S.
09:11Because they don't need subtitles.
09:14But, yeah, Narcos was a big thing.
09:16Like, everywhere I would go, in different parts of the world, people would be like, oh, Pablo Escobar.
09:22It was the thing that I did that really made people aware, I think, of me.
09:28But then it's been this kind of decision to do both these projects outside of Brazil, like the Civil War and things like that,
09:36but also to go back and do something like the Secret Agent.
09:40And I know it's been a few years since you acted in your own language.
09:43I never wanted to come here and to try Hollywood, to be, you know, none of those things.
09:51Like, I always felt very Brazilian.
09:54And I think that what makes me different and maybe special for a film is the fact that I'm not from here.
10:01You know, that I bring my culture and the things.
10:04I never understood actors that would try to lose their accents or try to nurture.
10:09I'm not, I'll never be like Jeremy here.
10:12You know, like, it's like, I'm a Brazilian actor.
10:17And I represent a bunch of people that live here in this country and speak with accents.
10:22And when we started coming here, people would ask, would you be able to play this character with a standard American accent?
10:28And I was like, no.
10:30First, because, no.
10:32And second, because politically, I thought, that's kind of wrong.
10:36Jeremy, you were going to be a dancer.
10:38This was where you started out very seriously pursuing that, right?
10:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:43Can you just explain how you instead wound up acting generally, but then specifically, before you were even 18, on a show that would take up 11 seasons and 134 episodes of your life?
10:57And that is, of course, shameless.
10:58Where did the shift happen?
11:00Yeah, I was really interested in dance when I was young.
11:03And there was a plan to go to the School of American Ballet.
11:05And, you know, I grew up in New York.
11:07And I had kind of transferred into a middle school that specialized in performing arts.
11:12And I joined the dance kind of program there before exploring the School of American Ballet.
11:18And I didn't think that the teacher was taking dance seriously enough.
11:22So I joined the drama program.
11:26And there was a wonderful teacher there, John McEnany.
11:29And he took things very seriously.
11:31I liked that.
11:32As a 12-year-old, it felt so fun to, you know, commit myself to something in such a serious way.
11:39And I found a lot of confidence on stage in dance, but then in acting.
11:45And I think I had a very, like, restless mind, as most kids do.
11:49And there was something about acting where I found, like, a calm and a peace and a real presence that I wasn't able to find.
11:56And I'm still kind of chasing.
11:58And that's what's really interesting about the thing.
12:00And then, yeah, I continued to study.
12:04I thought, yeah, my life was going to be more in New York and kind of doing theater here and there and a law and order every once in a while to, like, pay the rent.
12:14And I worked in a casting office for a long time as a reader.
12:17Oh, wow.
12:17And I got to be around great actors and great directors.
12:20And I got to, like, kind of, like, find my taste in film through that process as a teenager.
12:27That's great.
12:27Yeah, yeah, it was so, so wonderful.
12:31Susan Shopmaker, and she was so great and supportive.
12:34And so, anyway, I had plans to be in New York, and then I auditioned for, yeah, this show with Bill Macy for Showtime, a John Wells show.
12:40And I moved to L.A. when I was 18, kind of right out of high school.
12:44I got really lucky.
12:45I mean, you know, I had this, like, 11-year kind of training camp and schooling.
12:52And I got to work with great actors and with great writing.
12:54And I had consistency and continuity, which, especially for young actors, is never promised.
13:00And, yeah, I found a lot of confidence there as well, I think.
13:04Right.
13:04Jacob, I guess, in a weird way, we have a sports injury to thank for you going down this path.
13:11Yeah, I suppose, similar to what you're saying, Jeremy, there was, I had this, from 13 or 14, this is pre-sport, I've felt, like, monastic about performance.
13:23Like, the idea that this is something that you can take serious and, like, fully dive into.
13:29So I kind of had that bug in the back of my head because I did a Seussical the Musical when I was 13 as, like, a way to sort of deal with rambunctious behavior, I guess.
13:40They put me into this thing, and then I realized it was a place where you could channel something and then try and find some kind of peace, but without realizing that because I was 12.
13:49And then where I grew up, where I grew up in Australia and Brisbane, it's sort of the schools that I went to and the environment that I was in is sort of sports-heavy, rugby-oriented.
13:59You're not really a person unless you play sport.
14:02So I played sport and enjoyed it enough, but then I broke my back when I was 16.
14:08Wow. On the field?
14:10Yeah, yeah, because we were lifting weights sort of too early, and I was squatting wrong, I think, and I'd started fracturing this bone.
14:18And then I went into a tackle, and I just went, and I remember laying on the floor and kind of laughing because at the same time I was doing...
14:26As one would laugh when you break your back, yeah.
14:29No, because I had been doing rehearsals for a play at school at the same time, and the rugby coach couldn't comprehend that I couldn't make training.
14:38I was kind of like Troy Bolton in high school music.
14:40Like it really was the same, the same story.
14:44And I remember thinking when I broke my back, we just had a conversation about me needing to choose one or the other.
14:50And I thought it was hilarious that I wouldn't be able to play sport anymore, and I'd be able to do the thing that I knew I wanted to do, but sort of you weren't allowed to really, really do it.
14:58And from the moment that I broke my back, I got taken out of all my classes because I could only lay on the ground in class.
15:07So they let me just go to the library and watch movies.
15:10So I spent every class, grade 11 and 12, basically just watching movies.
15:15And then I kind of became obsessive about it and decided that I wanted to get to America and I wanted to try and make films there.
15:24And then didn't get into any of the acting schools.
15:26I got into a school where I was from, and then I went there for about six months.
15:30And then similar to you, I didn't think they took it seriously enough.
15:33And just as I was sort of contemplating leaving and just sort of heading to America, I booked The Kissing Booth, which is the first movie that I made, which at the time was like, I couldn't comprehend that I was going somewhere and someone was going to pay to have a camera that looks like this.
15:52And then I got to South Africa and I saw the cameras and it was amazing.
15:55And then I went to L.A. and then I did, I want to say, it felt like five years, but it was probably six months to a year of not really working.
16:05And then I got Euphoria and then sort of had the opportunity to step into something, you know, like that.
16:12As we talk now in this round about the specific project, Wagner, you go 20 years ago exactly to the Cannes Film Festival.
16:20Yeah.
16:21And you meet a film critic there.
16:22Yeah.
16:22And who could ever have imagined that this is going to be the guy that's going to give you the film role of a lifetime?
16:27Can you explain how that happened?
16:28I met Claiborne Mendoza Filho in Cannes.
16:31I was there with a film called Lower City, Brazilian film, and he was there as a critic.
16:36And it was really rare back then to have either actors or critics from the northeast of Brazil.
16:43Usually people from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro would go cover these things.
16:47And we were like, just, we hit it off and we were talking.
16:49And then I went back to Brazil and I saw that he was directing short films.
16:54And I was like, oh, that critic can direct.
16:57Those films were great.
16:58But then in 2012, I saw a film called Neighboring Sounds.
17:03I was like, this is one of the greatest Brazilian films ever.
17:06And then I became obsessed with work.
17:08I felt connected with him politically, artistically.
17:12I have to work with this guy.
17:14But it took a long time.
17:16What really put us together was actually politics.
17:19Because Brazil from 2018 to 2022 was under, I always struggle how to put it.
17:26It's like a very bad moment.
17:28And whoever was vocal against what was going on there suffered lots of consequences.
17:36So I, myself, I directed a film about a guy who was the leader of the armed struggle in Brazil.
17:41A film called Marighella.
17:42A film premiered in Berlin in 2019 and was censored in Brazil.
17:46Like, it was defeated.
17:47Censorship.
17:49Great.
17:49Not censorship back during the dictatorship, but a cynical censorship.
17:53But they make your film impossible to be released.
17:55And Kleber himself was also, so we got together.
18:00It was like, dude, how can we react?
18:04How can we expose our perplexity about what's going on here?
18:08And then The Secret Agent happened.
18:11Did you develop it together?
18:12Yeah, yeah.
18:12One of the producers of the film would develop it together.
18:15The only thing is that he would never show me the script.
18:20He was like, I will only show you the script.
18:22And the day that if you read the script and you don't like it, you are an asshole.
18:28And I was like, okay, cool.
18:30So one day he gave me the script and I'm like, I'm not an asshole.
18:34And it was indeed brilliant.
18:35That's right.
18:36An amazing script.
18:37And you won Best Actor, the film won Best.
18:39Films, and he won Best Director at Cannes.
18:42Best Director at Cannes.
18:43That's not a bad way to start your run.
18:45So you would just chop it up and then he would go away.
18:47And he would go away and exactly and work.
18:50And work.
18:51Jacob, you were off playing a prisoner of war in a limited series and find out that in nine weeks there's going to be a movie that you can be a part of with Guillermo del Toro if you can get it together in that quick amount of time.
19:06Yeah, I was in the middle of shooting these death camp sequences because I was doing the show with Justin Curzel, this Australian filmmaker.
19:14And we had done the portion of the show that was pre-World War II death camps.
19:21And we had taken seven weeks or so to cut the weight and then go into the death camp portion.
19:27So I was in the middle of that, which was a pretty heady kind of experience in its own thing.
19:32And then when Guillermo sends you something, you need to respond to it immediately.
19:37It's not something you can take the weekend on.
19:40And I think I suggested that I take the weekend so I could really absorb it and set the thing.
19:47And it was like, you need to read it by 11 p.m.
19:50There's no absorbing.
19:52And then there'll be a FaceTime at 5 a.m.
19:54And it's not a question if you're going to like it or want to do it.
20:00Because I mean, you would really do anything in this film just to see how that guy makes movies.
20:06And when it came through, it was Frankenstein.
20:08And before I even opened it, I called my agent and I was like, is it to do the, you know.
20:14And he was like, I think so.
20:15I was like, what do you mean you think so?
20:17And he goes, I think it is.
20:18Because I didn't know at this point that Andrew had dropped out.
20:22And, and then, yeah, and then I, and then I read it and then I talked to him in the morning.
20:28And then there was like six excruciating days in which I had to keep shooting and not hear back from him.
20:33And it was the first time I've actually felt, because I like what you said, what's yours is yours and what's not is not.
20:39And it was the first time that I, I, after reading the screenplay, I was like, no, this is, this has to be, this has to be mine.
20:46I have to play this.
20:47So I never have that, like, I never really have that thing that's like, I got to do this thing.
20:52And, and, and, and yeah, and then it worked out.
20:55Dwayne, you are the highest grossing actor in the world in 2013, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024.
21:02Fifth highest grossing actor of all time.
21:04The 40 films in which you've starred have collectively taken in just under $14 billion worldwide or an average of $349 million.
21:12And within the last year, you had two movies open at number one within a month of each other, which nobody had done in 27 years.
21:20You have said, though, that the thing that you were chasing with the Smashing Machine was something other than box office primarily.
21:28You knew that there was something that you maybe wanted to do differently with your career.
21:33You had more to offer.
21:34Yeah, you know, stats, I say sometimes.
21:36I don't know.
21:37It's just numbers.
21:39Lunch is on me, boys.
21:41I feel like I've had a lucky career and I reached this point in my career, maybe seven, eight years ago, where around maybe 2017, 2018, where I had this little voice behind my rib cage.
21:59I think we all have it.
22:00Sometimes it whispers to us and sometimes it's really resounding and it's pounding on us.
22:05And that voice for me was, well, what's more?
22:10And I'm obsessed, I feel like a lot of us, probably all of us, with a few things.
22:15One of the things I'm obsessed with is trying and this idea of trying and just taking a step and, you know, what's yours is yours.
22:24What's not yours is not yours.
22:26But also I do believe in setting an intention and taking a step towards the thing that you want.
22:34And then the universe has this way, I think, of meeting you halfway and presenting things to you.
22:39Correct.
22:40Opportunities, people, et cetera.
22:42So I have been chasing a few things in terms of my career.
22:46The big movies are fun to do.
22:48They're hard work, as we all know.
22:50And when they hit, great.
22:51A lot of people around the world will like them.
22:53They flop.
22:54It's okay.
22:55We move on.
22:55But I was, I had this obsession to do something for me.
23:01And as opposed to, I started asking myself, am I living my dream?
23:05Or mine plus a lot of other people and entities around me.
23:10So with the Smashing Machine, Smashing Machine was just that opportunity where I had met Mark Kerr, who was the guy who I played.
23:16I met him in the late 90s as he was ascending and becoming the Smashing Machine.
23:22And I saw his documentary.
23:23I thought the documentary was really moving because at that time, in the world of MMA and professional wrestling, there was still a lot of connective tissue at that time.
23:34Where we'd be in the same venues, the same gyms.
23:37A lot of those guys in MMA tried professional wrestling because they just wanted to make money.
23:43And they could protect their injuries more in pro wrestling where it's like if we were all wrestling together, our goal is let's put on a great match.
23:50Let's not get hurt.
23:52Let's protect each other's injuries.
23:53Let's go on to the next town.
23:54So we knew a lot of those guys and there was an epidemic in MMA as well as in pro wrestling with addiction at that time.
24:04And I'd lost a lot of friends to addiction who OD'd, didn't make it back, who decided to check out.
24:11So I was moved by Mark's story because he had his addiction problems and he dealt with his demons.
24:18And the thing that really grabbed my attention about this story, which is why I wanted to make it with Benny Safdie, was I felt like none of us can relate to the greatest fighter on the planet.
24:34But what we can relate to is this idea of pressure and how we all deal with pressure and sometimes we do well with it and sometimes it kicks us in the ass.
24:44And in this case with Mark, here's this guy who looks invincible and in many ways he is, but at the same time broken on the inside.
24:53I'd let that be the guiding light creatively and allowed me to tap into something, an artistry that I was looking to do for such a long time and just looking for that opportunity to do where I can really not only challenge myself, but, oh, there's the cliff.
25:11Let's fucking jump off this cliff.
25:14Even when we don't know what's on the other side, it's okay.
25:17So that all led to the smash machine and the cliff.
25:21Yeah.
25:22But we've all been on that cliff, right?
25:24Oh, yeah.
25:26Jeremy Allen White, four seasons into The Bear.
25:29This is a show that puts you on the map in a bigger way than ever before.
25:33You hear from Scott Cooper and Bruce Springsteen, who we should note had never cooperated with a narrative project about his life before.
25:42Yeah.
25:42And they say, we're going to take that leap and we want you to take it with us.
25:47Yeah.
25:49Was that terrifying, exciting?
25:50Yeah, no, I mean, that was the cliff for sure.
25:53I mean, I, you know, I had spoken to Scott.
25:55We had gotten together to talk.
25:57You know, I'd been a fan of his films and a lot of the actors he's worked with.
26:01And we spent the lunch really just talking about actors we like and movies we like and stuff.
26:06And I left the meeting and, you know, just said, I really hope something works.
26:11But he didn't mention the film at all.
26:12And then four months later, he asked me to listen to the album, you know, Nebraska and the film, the period in Bruce's life is really about making this particular record, you know, Nebraska.
26:26And it's such a powerful record.
26:28It was an album I'd heard before, but not for a long time.
26:30And, you know, I wanted to explore that world.
26:35I wanted to explore the creative process.
26:36But I talked to Scott and Bruce, and I don't know about you guys.
26:40Like, I'm sure there, I think there are some actors who just feel like they can do whatever it is.
26:45And they'll show up and they'll figure it out.
26:47And I just wanted to make sure I was the right guy.
26:50And the odd scene stacked against me, you know.
26:53I mean, Scott wanted me to do all the singing in it.
26:56I never sang before.
26:57He wanted me to play the guitar for it.
26:59I never played the guitar before.
27:01We had about six months to prepare.
27:03And I was just like, I don't know if that can be done the way that you want to do it, you know.
27:08The way you want to show up.
27:09Yeah, and the way that I want to show up.
27:10Exactly, yeah.
27:11But then it was that thing.
27:12It was, you know, am I going to shy away from this challenge or am I going to jump and see what happens?
27:17And I trusted Scott and I loved him as a filmmaker.
27:21And I loved Bruce and I loved this record and I loved the opportunity it was going to give in exploring this great artist's creative process.
27:30And so we jumped.
27:31And it was really a leap of faith.
27:32And then it was really a matter of kind of like willpower.
27:35Just, you know, I am capable of learning these new things.
27:39You have six months, you just need to commit time and get the repetition down and just change the way your life looks for six months.
27:46Jeremy, did you feel, because I felt this on Smash Machine with Mark Kerr, did you feel added pressure inhabiting the skin of, you know, one of the greatest ever?
27:58Yeah, one of the greatest ever.
27:59And also somebody who, and similarly, like, people bring so many ideas to Bruce Springsteen.
28:06They have their understanding of Bruce Springsteen.
28:09And I felt like, well, I don't want to interrupt that understanding, you know.
28:14It's so pure and powerful and he's adored and rightfully so.
28:19And I just didn't want to mess with it, I guess.
28:22And that was nerve wracking.
28:23And you're not going to please everybody.
28:25Right.
28:25Which was the, yeah.
28:26You know, this is like, this is impossible.
28:29Right.
28:29But I think in the beginning, that was my, you know, in the first week, I was like, how can I please everybody?
28:35Is there any way to get approval from everybody?
28:37And then, of course, you realize that's impossible.
28:40And the effort you're putting into that, it's useless.
28:42The most important person to impress or approve something to, if anybody, would be Bruce.
28:48Of course.
28:48You know what I'm saying?
28:49Yes.
28:49Above everybody else.
28:50Did you find it helpful that you had the resource directly at your disposal to kind of pull from?
28:55In the beginning, you know, I spent a lot of time with Bruce.
28:57He was very gracious and very generous with his time.
29:00And that all felt wonderful.
29:01And I felt like I had permission to start this thing.
29:04But then he was on set almost every day.
29:07Which was something that was not, we did not speak about prior.
29:10I feel you.
29:11I feel you.
29:11And I was just like, oh, no.
29:13I saw pictures of that and felt for you.
29:17Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:18Like, every single day, there's a new picture.
29:21And also, like, I don't know about you guys, but, like, every first week of a job, I'm a little wobbly.
29:25Like, you know, you're still figuring it out.
29:27And then to add that.
29:29But then, of course, as time went on, he was there to support.
29:31He was there to try and, I think, like, give me confidence, not take it away.
29:35Love that.
29:35Love that.
29:36And so we found that.
29:38Get vicarious flop sweat just thinking about it.
29:41Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:42It was something.
29:43He was there every day.
29:45Yeah.
29:45Did you ever feel like you could have an argument with him and say, I don't think he would do it that way?
29:49I didn't think he would do it.
29:51I don't think I would do it that way.
29:52We did have a conversation, like, early in the, like, towards the end of the first week where I was like, you know, I was like, you know, you made this record Nebraska.
30:00He made Nebraska by himself in a room.
30:02And he was not with the band for that.
30:04And his process, at the time, he made it alone.
30:07And I had this talk with him, kind of like, you know, you know the way you made this record, you know?
30:11You kind of had to be by yourself and, like, off doing your own sort of thing.
30:16You know, maybe you could understand.
30:19And he, like, got it right away.
30:21He clicked into it.
30:22And that was, like, on a Thursday.
30:23And he didn't show up on Friday.
30:25And I was like, all right, I'm going to breathe a little bit.
30:27I'm going to figure this out.
30:28I got some space.
30:29And then Monday morning he was back.
30:31And he was like, how was the weekend?
30:32And he was like, oh.
30:34We're back.
30:34And well, just though, when he was there, sometimes he brought friends, right?
30:38Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:39Well, he had John Landau there as manager, who Jeremy Strong plays really beautifully in the film.
30:42And then there was a day where I had to do a lot of performing on stage, which is what I was probably most nervous about.
30:47He brought Steven Spielberg to come spend time on stage.
30:51That's always helpful.
30:52Yeah, that's always helpful.
30:53Well, with Michael, Adam, and Mark, these 2025 projects were reunions with filmmakers you'd worked with before.
31:01Michael, you've appeared in every one of Ryan Coogler's features, going back to Fruitvale Station through the Korean and Black Panther films.
31:08Now this.
31:09Adam, you previously worked with Noah Baumbach on Myra with Stories.
31:12And then, Mark, you had worked with Mike Flanagan on The Fall of the House of Usher.
31:18Maybe, Michael, you could start.
31:19He's coming to you this time asking you to play two parts.
31:22That only goes so far being comfortable with the guy, right?
31:25Yeah, no, I mean, you know, it's definitely a shorthand that you develop and that I think is extremely important in any relationship.
31:32But specifically this one, starting out with an independent film where we had, like, you know, $700,000 and some duct tape.
31:40You know what I'm saying?
31:41Shot a film in, like, 19 days, you know, which was the core, the essence of filmmaking and acting.
31:48You know, just showing up and trying to do the best work that you can.
31:50And his career evolving at the same time I was evolving, you know, and going to do a spinoff of a legendary franchise, Rocky, to do Creed.
31:59And knowing that the odds are still stacked against us, but having that familiarity and that comfort to push one another was definitely there and definitely suited as well, you know, throughout that.
32:11So fast forward to, you know, Sinners, and this is the first movie that I've done after directing for the first time.
32:18So I had a new set of eyes, you know, on set, trying to spot anything that I could be helpful with to help Ryan's job be a bit better on this movie was definitely helpful.
32:30But I guess the flip side of that, not in a negative way, but from his perspective, you know, he's somebody who pushes me.
32:37You know, he knows me very well.
32:38And knowing that this was going to be outside of my comfort zone a little bit, something that I needed.
32:43And, you know, he knows me well.
32:45And it was something that I was looking for also.
32:47So the fact that he, you know, wanted me to play Twins, it was a, you know.
32:51That's a crazy cliff, man.
32:53The Twins.
32:54It is, you know.
32:55It's so good, brother.
32:56Thank you, man.
32:57And it's that, you know, that moment of imposter syndrome or, you know, that moment of being exposed to a certain degree of, all right, you know, we've seen it done not so well before.
33:10You know, where it doesn't quite work out the way you want it to.
33:13You know, the twin gag, same actor playing two different roles and me trying to think through and us trying to develop and find how am I actually going to pull this thing off.
33:22So I think diving into, like, their trauma, you know, their childhood trauma and how they both manifest those things and how they hold their physical bodies that we were talking about earlier.
33:35You know, Smoke's more, you know, he internalizes his pain, his trauma, you know, stacks.
33:41He talks his way through it.
33:42He smiles his way through it.
33:43He kind of hides his pain with his charisma and his charm and whatnot.
33:47And then us as, you know, as actors, you know, I think we all try to find those little things that we can add to our utility belt that makes these characters feel as real as possible.
33:58You know, for me, it was wardrobe in certain ways where I wore, you know, shoes that were a little bit too big for Smoke because he didn't move a lot.
34:06He was planted.
34:06I needed him to feel, you know, grounded as much as possible.
34:10And Stack, I wore a half size, you know, too small because he was always moving and he was always on the one to the next thing.
34:17So those little things were super helpful along with music.
34:20You know, music plays such a huge, huge, huge, you know, role in this movie.
34:24But that dynamic, that shorthand, you know, and the comfortability between me and Ryan to be able to, you know, talk through these things and to push one another, I think, brought the best out of me.
34:33Yeah. Mark, I want to read you something that Mike Flanagan said, again, having now worked with you twice in three years or something like that.
34:44He's Luke Skywalker. That tattooed itself on his life and his identity to the point that I think a lot of people don't know what Mark is capable of.
34:51I've worked with him twice now and both times he has surprised and delighted me with his performances.
34:56He vanishes into a character completely and his level of preparation is second to none, close quote.
35:02And I wonder if you can talk about, after the original trilogy, you went and did four things on Broadway in the 80s alone.
35:09You became a preeminent voice actor.
35:12You found people like Mike to help you to be seen as more than an iconic character, which is not an easy thing.
35:19I wonder if you can talk about how you've strategized to get beyond that.
35:23Well, when you do something well in Hollywood, they want you to do that over and over again.
35:28And I went to Broadway because I knew that there were open auditions.
35:33It wasn't like they were saying, please come here and do theater.
35:37But I auditioned for Sir Peter Hall and wound up doing, I wanted to do character parts.
35:42I got to do Elephant Man, Amadeus, Harrigan and Hart, five other shows.
35:47But when I really got into voiceover, I thought, where has this been all my life?
35:52Because they cast with their ears, not their eyes.
35:55You're going to be able to play parts you'd never get in a million years if you were on camera.
36:00I'm too short to play the Joker.
36:01I had to sound like the Joker and that's it.
36:04And I got really spoiled.
36:06I got to the point where I thought, I don't care if I ever do on camera again.
36:09But I was a fan of Mike's before he contacted me from Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass.
36:17And he was offering me a role.
36:19But what was interesting was it's about the most evil family ever.
36:26And he always writes something that's relatable because it's supernatural.
36:29So it's about a family that manufactures ligadone, a drug that's highly addictive, made them billions of dollars, but kills millions of people.
36:42So you go, oh, ushers, ligadone, Sackler family, Oxycontin.
36:49So the baseline is there of believability.
36:53But I'm playing the lawyer, this soulless, sociopathic enabler of evil.
37:00I felt like he had a little soul.
37:02Yeah, he had a soul.
37:03He had a soul.
37:03Yeah, he had more.
37:04Well, naturally they thought of me.
37:06Okay.
37:07No, but I was so impressed.
37:08I thought, I'm so there because I love ensembles where the weight of the picture is not on your shoulders.
37:16I mean, he has these wonderful ensemble casts.
37:19And we just clicked.
37:21Quite a testament to you, though, that after that character that you've just described, he then comes back to you to play a widowed Jewish grandfather who's passionate about math.
37:29You can't go too much further in the other direction.
37:33Well, when he called me, he said, well, I have something you might be interested in is based on a Stephen King novella.
37:37So based on his reputation and Stephen King, I'm expecting the supernatural epic of all time.
37:43And to show you the versatility of Stephen King, it's so different than what you'd expect.
37:50A life-affirming, wonderful portrait of this young man at four different stages of his life.
37:56I mean, if it weren't for Mike, I think I'd still just be doing voiceover.
38:00Because the older you get, the less you care.
38:02This is something you have to look forward to.
38:05No way.
38:07I mean, I shouldn't put it that way.
38:09You do care, but you don't sweat the small stuff.
38:11You know, stuff that would really bother you in your 20s.
38:14You go, meh, that's the way it is.
38:16Well, and then Adam, again, reuniting with Noah.
38:20He's gotten to know you, and he now writes a part for you.
38:24He's spoken about why he wanted you to play this particular part of the manager who's taking care of the movie star who's a little bit oblivious to the way his actions impact those around him.
38:35Well, yes, I became very friendly with Noah.
38:38We shot a movie together.
38:39I loved him.
38:40Funny as hell.
38:41Very meticulous director.
38:43Very thoughtful.
38:44Wants you to get it right.
38:46Gives you time to get it right.
38:47It's exciting.
38:49You show up to work.
38:50You say, all right.
38:50But he's not moving on until everyone's happy, until he's happy, and you trust him, and he's a great man.
38:56And then he told me he's writing another movie.
38:59Out of nowhere, you get those phone calls where you hear someone's thinking of you.
39:03You go, oh, good, man.
39:04Something's coming my way.
39:05I don't know when, but at least I'll be working again.
39:07And for some reason, I love him.
39:10He thinks I'm a wonderful guy.
39:14I'm like, I'll take it, man.
39:16I can be.
39:17I can be a wonderful guy.
39:18But he doesn't see the sickness.
39:22He ignores that.
39:25He doesn't see it, or he chooses to ignore it.
39:27But anyways, he wrote this part that I love.
39:31Like, your manager in your movie loves you so much, and his blocking form and making sure life.
39:37That's for sure.
39:37It was a beautiful performance.
39:38Yeah.
39:39And really the heart and soul, because the toll it takes on your character is tragic.
39:46Sure, sure, sure.
39:46Because it just takes you for granted.
39:48It really was uncomfortably close.
39:51Yes, yes, yes.
39:53Like, I'm looking back at, are we doing this right or all?
39:56That's true.
39:56Have I treated my people the way they should be treated?
39:59Sure, sure, that's true.
40:00I watched it with my manager.
40:02Oh, yeah.
40:03We watched it.
40:03Yeah, we're both crying.
40:04And there's this one thing that you do that's so gentle, and it's just an action.
40:08But you put his shoes in his bag for him.
40:10Oh, right.
40:10You come in trying to figure out, like, what's happened with the black eye, but you say, and then I saw you grab his sneakers and pack his bag.
40:16Right, right.
40:17And it's heartbreak.
40:17I still want to make him feel good.
40:19Yeah, like, but it's just so natural.
40:20I know you've said that with Hustle recently and with this, part of the appeal is being asked to play a character who cares so much about somebody else.
40:29It feels good.
40:30It feels good to care.
40:32It feels good to be on the set and be that person.
40:35And then even when you go home at night and you play a person that's so giving and so much about everyone else, you do drive home going, I've got to be a little bit more like that.
40:45Right.
40:46You carry this.
40:46Right.
40:47It's the beauty, I think, of what we do, right, where you can hold up a mirror to what we do.
40:53Yeah.
40:54It forces us to look at ourselves.
40:56Yeah, yeah.
40:56It's also like the kind of method that no one ever wants to do.
40:59Everyone's always like, yeah, I beat the shit out of myself and I broke this mirror.
41:04But, like, you play a nice guy and you go, well, I was really kind to my wife.
41:07I was talking to my kids real good.
41:09I was polite to people.
41:10Yes, yes.
41:10Nobody ever says that.
41:11You know, so that's interesting.
41:12Only when you're playing a punk.
41:14Yeah, only when you're being a piece of shit.
41:15You can do nothing, you know?
41:17And that's what the audience is going to take away from it.
41:19You know what I mean?
41:19Yes, man.
41:19When they're driving home with their, you know, the significant others, they get back home at their house, that performance, that movie, those themes are going to be replaying through their head.
41:28We have a number of people here who went through a significant amount of time and work in a makeup trailer.
41:35And I'd love you to just lay out what the kind of time and work entailed, but also how that shapes the performance when you get out and walk onto the set.
41:48When I spoke to Guillermo the first time, the only specific thing he said about if I was going to do the film, he said, this isn't a prosthetics process.
41:57He said, it's going to be the sacrament.
42:00It needs to be holy.
42:01You know, it's Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
42:02And then you step into the church.
42:04The time that it takes is what you need to sort of become this thing that's other.
42:11I guess when I have clothes on in the film, it's like five hours to do the sort of top part.
42:17And then when he's sort of newborn, head to toe was about 10 hours.
42:22You couldn't do it every film, but if you could, if you could have 10 hours before every day to get ready for the day, it would be the greatest blessing that you could have.
42:31There's no world in which you don't know what's happening.
42:33You know the screenplay inside out, and then you can put it down and spend another three hours sort of thinking about it and then not thinking about it.
42:41And then all of a sudden this sort of transformation happens, and you look up in the mirror, and you're gone.
42:46And you have this freedom to step out onto the set.
42:49And I don't know if you noticed this, but when I would come out of the trailer, there was this sort of feeling on the set.
42:55And when you stepped in, everyone responded to the makeup.
42:59And it meant that it was time to go, because they'd already been shooting half a day by the time I would sort of come in.
43:06So everyone's kind of anticipating this creature.
43:10Very similar to Jacob.
43:12You know, you realize that in the process and you transform.
43:16I didn't have five or 10 hours.
43:19We were roughly four hours every day in the makeup chair.
43:22Kazuhiro is one of the greatest ever.
43:26Only four hours.
43:28Only four hours.
43:29Just four hours.
43:30But to Jacob's point, it does allow for this absorption of the role of the screenplay of what's happening.
43:39I would work, look up every 30 minutes, and something would be different.
43:42Change.
43:43So by the time I walked out of the trailer, I was Mark Kerr.
43:46I was in his skin.
43:47And very similar to Jacob, the very first day I walked on set, the air changed on set.
43:54Like, you felt it.
43:56And I know what it's like.
43:57You walk on set and everything gets quieter.
44:00And there's this aura that happens.
44:02I think when that kind of transition, transformation happens, there's the version of Mark Kerr that could have been six hours, seven hours, where it's a complete transformation.
44:14You don't see me at all.
44:15Very similar to you.
44:16Exactly like yours.
44:18And the first test we did was about six hours.
44:21And I was prepared to go that route.
44:24And I had asked Benny, you know, what are you feeling?
44:26He said, well, let me ask you a question.
44:30He said, do you feel like you'll discover something about yourself playing this role?
44:34I said, I do.
44:36We haven't even shot a frame of footage yet.
44:37And I feel like I've already discovered a lot about myself.
44:40He goes, that's all I need to know.
44:44If that's the case, then I'm going to make sure I see your eyes and that I could still see Dwayne in there somewhere where it's not a complete transformation.
44:52And in this discovery of the stuff that you're going to discover about yourself, I want to feel it.
44:57And that helped, too, as well.
45:00It works in the style of that movie, too, because you see you.
45:03Like, I see so much of you.
45:05The character is, the soul of it is there.
45:07But then I see yours as well, which is, that's the greatest part about it, I think, is that it is this, it's Mark Kerr.
45:13But it's also, it's an idea, you play the whole thing, which is you as well, I assume.
45:19I don't know you so well.
45:20Yes.
45:20Because you're not Mark Kerr.
45:21Yeah.
45:22Right.
45:22It's like, it's the way you see him.
45:25Oh, yeah.
45:25It's my interpretation.
45:26So it has to have you.
45:28That was very well.
45:29Yes.
45:30It has to be, you have to be there, too.
45:33Yes.
45:34I wonder, what was the moment on your 2025 film where you felt most in danger of failing?
45:40Every great scene, you obsess on, holy shit, man, that scene is fantastic.
45:48You better not blow this.
45:49And when you see in the scripts that you're crying out of control, your character's crying, you just go, fuck, man.
45:57It's coming.
45:58I don't get excited for those.
45:59In real life, I think I've cried once.
46:02But I mean, I really, I mean, I'm just not a guy who cries a lot.
46:06When I see, and there were like three or four of those in this movie, I'd say the week before, I would just go, fuck, Wednesday's going to say, I'm going to let everybody down.
46:18Like, how the fuck am I going to cry?
46:19Especially when you're with other actors, you just go, man, I got to get this right.
46:24This person I'm working with wants to go home and I got to fucking do the best I can.
46:29But those kind of moments, that's when I put the most pressure on me.
46:33And then you feel good when the director says, I wrote your crime, but you don't have to, or something like that.
46:39You go, they always do that for you, don't they?
46:40Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:41They're like, I know I wrote it down, but don't worry about that.
46:45I don't think I ever feel totally certain on any job necessarily, but I think for this one in particular, I never felt as if I was on real firm ground.
46:57I get the, you know, one-liner and I definitely mark my calendar a little bit.
47:01I'm like, this day is coming.
47:03It's coming.
47:03I probably should stop because do you feel like the buildup to it sometimes is actually more crippling than the, you just kind of like, yeah, exactly.
47:12We had this thing up on Frankenstein where the final scene is that scene, which is just meant to be full melodrama, operatic emotion, forgiving the father.
47:22And I thought we would shoot it at the end of the film.
47:24And I hadn't, I didn't know what the voice was yet because I had this truncated time.
47:28And then Guillermo said, tomorrow we're going to do the forgiveness scene because the set is ready, which is the first time I'd acted with Oscar.
47:34I didn't have a voice.
47:36Yeah.
47:36I didn't know what it is.
47:37He goes, show him with the voice.
47:38Just make it gravelly.
47:40Just have some gravel in it.
47:41I like the whisper thing.
47:42You just have some gravel.
47:43So I had to figure out how I was going to, I had not figured out how he'd cry, how to emote as this thing.
47:49What I did was I was like, if I think about this, I'm not going to go to work tomorrow.
47:54Like I'm going to be in the hospital or something.
47:55I'm going to be, I'm going to have a, I'm going to freak out.
47:57So I just didn't think about it.
47:59That's big.
48:00And then we, and then just did it.
48:01And it was.
48:02Trust.
48:03You didn't need to worry, you know, or any time, if I'd slaved over it for the next eight weeks of filming, it would have been a nightmare.
48:09Then it frees you the rest of the movie.
48:11Then you know you're good.
48:13You know you did the thing.
48:13You know you can do it.
48:14And you can backdoor into that.
48:15Exactly.
48:16You can go back to it as well.
48:18It's interesting.
48:18Sometimes I feel that we don't need the amount of preparation that we all think we need.
48:24Just to make us feel better, really.
48:27Sometimes we just show up and do it.
48:29And then it works.
48:31You know, like we always think that, oh my God, you have to really.
48:34I think it's because it's not a thing.
48:36It's an intangible thing, whatever it is that you do.
48:39So you have to kind of pretend that there is a business structure to it.
48:42Like, well, I did this and I did this from nine to three and then I did this.
48:46So I must be good.
48:47Like I must be able to stand in front of these.
48:48Right, because there's no right or wrong way to get there.
48:50There is no way to do it.
48:51You can say craft.
48:51You can say all these things.
48:52But it's.
48:54Do you believe that on that day?
48:56Yeah.
48:57How do you feel when you woke up in the morning?
48:59Do you have a headache?
49:00Like, you know, all these things.
49:01And kind of trick yourself that you've done something important.
49:04Well, one thing there's no getting around having to prepare for is a four page monologue,
49:09which, Mark, you were asked to give about the subject of math, but obviously about more
49:14than that.
49:15How long did you work on getting ready for that day?
49:19Well, luckily I had about a month with the script because, I mean, the guy is sort of not
49:25particularly interesting.
49:26He drinks a little too much, but he's devoted to his grandson and his wife.
49:31But he's an accountant.
49:32He's, dare I say it, dull.
49:35And what provokes him is he's working with his grandson on his homework.
49:41And the grandson says to him, math is boring.
49:46Oh, my God.
49:47It's like he spit on the Pope.
49:49I'm so offended by this.
49:51I launch into this four page defense of accountants.
49:57And it goes just beyond parody in the sense that, you know, by the end of the monologue,
50:04he's like equating, it's like if there weren't accountants, the world could not exist.
50:09It's one of the greatest professions in all of mankind.
50:13And he has facts to back it up.
50:15But what tickled me was this really defines who this man is.
50:20That's the first thing that really brings him to life.
50:23The hard part was trying to mentorize it.
50:28You know, I have this trick.
50:30I don't know about you guys.
50:31I'll put like little cartoon drawings or puns in that.
50:35Because I couldn't do this jump from, it can make you popular.
50:39You go out to a restaurant and figure out how much it costs for everyone to eat.
50:43And it's good for your brain.
50:45I couldn't make that jump.
50:46So I finally thought, ah, and I wrote zombie in the margin, eat brains.
50:54But it took me, I had a month.
50:56Right, right, right, right.
50:56But I had a month to try and memorize all this stuff.
51:00If a writer just has the other actor even interrupt with, uh-huh, mentally just go, okay, good.
51:08I got a little break.
51:08Really, really quickly, I got to ask you, I've always wanted to know this.
51:15Because I told you back there, I've always wanted to meet you.
51:17When you were making Star Wars and you were on that set, did you have a sense, like, this shit, this could be pretty?
51:24Or were you like, what the fuck?
51:26Well, what was interesting is I got the part without having read the whole script.
51:30They only gave you a scene.
51:32And I'm thinking, who talks like this?
51:34I mean, is this a send-up of Flash Gordon or whatever?
51:37Yeah.
51:37And Harrison tested with me.
51:39I said, you were in American Graffiti.
51:41I mean, is this like a very, hey, whatever, let's just do it.
51:46So he was no help at all.
51:48I went to George, said the same question.
51:50He goes, ah, well, let's just do it and we'll talk about it later.
51:53Translation, let's just do it and we'll never, ever do it.
51:55So I was totally in the dark about the tone or the style.
52:00And the only choice I made that, in retrospect, was the right one.
52:04I said, okay, I'm not going to send this up.
52:06I'll be as sincere as I can be.
52:09But, no, I thought when I read it, when I finally got the part, they're sending over the script.
52:14I'll never forget reading that script for the first time.
52:17Because even without John Williams' music, even without all the special effects, it was so entertaining, funny, ironic.
52:27I mean, effortless feminism.
52:29You had a princess.
52:30She was no damsel in distress.
52:32You call this a rescue?
52:33Give me that gun.
52:34I mean, just fantastic.
52:37Robots arguing over whose fault it is.
52:39I mean, I was the straight man to these robots, but I thought it was hilarious.
52:43So I was really high on the movie when I met the very first day with Robert Watts, the production manager.
52:49He goes, what do you think about what we're about to do?
52:51I said, I think we're on a winner.
52:53I mean, I love science fiction and fantasy, and I have since I was a kid.
52:57But this had all of that plus humor, you know, plus the irony.
53:02It could be enjoyed on a lot of different levels.
53:04So I said, this thing is going to make $30 million if it makes a dime.
53:08Because I said, my friend worked at the L.A. Art Museum in the film department.
53:14I said, look up all the grosses for fantasy films.
53:16You don't have to go to the silent era on Metropolis, but like, say, from King Kong on.
53:21And my prediction was it's going to make more than Planet of the Apes.
53:24The Charlton Heston one.
53:26But I had no idea it turned into what it did.
53:30Oh, that's amazing.
53:31Well, with our remaining few minutes here, I'd love to do something called rapid fire.
53:35Just the first thing that comes to your mind.
53:37And which living actor who you've never worked with would you most like to work with?
53:41And we're going to stipulate it cannot be somebody at this table.
53:44Well, in the sequel trilogies, Harrison Ford.
53:47Yeah, oh, yeah.
53:47Because I only had two cameos in the middle one.
53:51We never, I said, aren't we going to have a moment where all three of us get together and raise the roof?
53:56It'll only take 30 seconds.
53:58Yeah.
53:58And J.J. said, well, Mark, it's not Luke's story anymore.
54:00I said, Star Wars wasn't Obi-Wan's story, but Alexander had a crucial, you know.
54:07Anyway, nobody listens to me.
54:09Jesse Plemons.
54:10Great.
54:10Yeah.
54:11He's very interesting.
54:12This is awesome.
54:13Daniel Day News.
54:14Oh, yeah, that's good.
54:16That's a good one.
54:17I'm going to go with that one.
54:18Yeah.
54:20Michael.
54:20I would have said these guys, by the way.
54:22Yeah, I do.
54:22That's why we had to take that.
54:23That was eliminated.
54:24That was good.
54:26Meryl Streep?
54:27Yeah.
54:28That's good.
54:28Yeah.
54:29I think she's phenomenal.
54:30I've been watching her forever.
54:31She's great.
54:32Adam.
54:32I like the Daniel Day.
54:34Okay.
54:34Great guy.
54:35I love him.
54:37I think Pacino, I'd love to have for so long.
54:41Met him once, and like, I'd ruin it, you know.
54:43You just meet someone you admire so much, and then it's just kind of like.
54:46What are you supposed to do with Pacino?
54:48Last one.
54:49Yeah.
54:50What would you be doing today if you had not become an actor?
54:54I'd be so lost.
54:55I know, man.
54:56I think something around hospitality, like being of service to people, whether it's like
55:02cooking, love cooking, food is amazing, but something around food, hospitality, something
55:08like that.
55:09Yeah.
55:09Yeah.
55:09Well, I was so discouraged by my family, you know, in terms of having any chance of success.
55:16When I was in college, I took up backup courses to eventually become a teacher, so I could become
55:23a drama teacher and still direct and do the things I love.
55:26I graduated as a journalist.
55:28I worked as a journalist for a while, but I, you know what, one thing that I find fascinating
55:33is the UN, you know, the UN people that travel around, and, you know, I think that that organization
55:40is very interesting, and unfortunately not, like I've had a good moment right now.
55:45Yeah, I'd be like a gardener, like a gardener at a school or at a park or something like that.
55:53Working for my dad, that was always his thing.
55:57He'd like give me time limits on me trying to become what we do.
56:01He'd be like, all right, if you don't make it by a certain age, you come work for me.
56:07So I always had that in the back of my mind.
56:08What did he do?
56:09He was an electrical contractor.
56:12Yeah, yeah.
56:12And I was pretty clueless.
56:15I didn't know, I would never know how to be smooth at that.
56:19But in the back of my mind, I always had that, like, all right, something, I'll get to be
56:25with my dad and hang out with him, and he'll teach me if this doesn't work.
56:30Well, guys, I can't thank you enough for the great performances and for taking the time
56:33to do this with us.
56:34So thanks again.
56:36Thanks.
56:37You're welcome.
56:38You're welcome.
57:09We're right back.
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