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Visit ixlearning.com/slash audio to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. I'm Jane Pauley. You're listening to an extended interview from the latest edition of Sunday Morning. Go back to those waiter days. What was life like?
back then when you were living in Hell's Kitchen and working here? It was great. It was, you know, people sometimes ask about, you know. my struggles, you know, those years of struggling and I'm like, I did, you know. I was just a Single Dumb.
guy with no responsibilities. I got to do theater. A lot of the time, and when I wasn't doing theater, I was, you know. In a great place like this, getting a free dinner every shift and hanging out and being in New York City and soaking it all up.
So it was. It was a fantastic time. I got a little nervous sometimes walking home to whichever. lousy sublet I was living in in Hell's Kitchen at the time from different friends of mine with a pocket full of cash. tips in Hell's Kitchen in the 80s.
It was a little rough. Scary. A little rough.
So I tried to... I tried to look a little extra like. Maybe you don't want to mess with me at 1 a.m., you know, walking home after my shift. But yeah, nothing bad ever happened. That's great.
It worked. You did look tough. I acted like I was tough, which is one of the things I'm capable of doing. Exactly. That brings us back to the Westies.
Were you a good waiter? You know what? Not very good. I was I worked hard. I was pleasant, you know.
I was, I tried to be charming. I was not organized. I would make six trips to get, you know, one different, oh, water? Boom boom boom boom, here's water. Oh, bread?
Oh, pop pop pop. Here's, you know.
So this would have taken me like five trips to set up. Yeah. And the butter would already be melting by the time I got it here. Isn't it funny that someone who's so organized and can memorize lines Can't do this. It's weird how the brain works.
It's a very different thing and how the brain doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that those years, I always say, I waited tables and I always say I think everyone should wait tables at some point in their lives. It's great experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, waiting tables is. a valuable real world experience. What do you think you learned? Uh uh patience.
You know, work ethic. I mean, any kind of job. You know, I was mowing lawns when I was a kid. busing tables, you know. before, you know, when I was in high school in the summers.
delivering pizza, this and that. I think, you know, any kind of a service industry. Job teaches you how to deal with people, a wide array of people, you know. Most of your customers are very pleasant.
Some of them are very demanding, some of them are unpleasant and you know You got to go with the flow. That's very true. Good character studies. Go back to the beginning. You were born in Detroit.
And then moved to Ohio around age 10? 10, yeah, I think it was 10, maybe 11. My dad was a taught. public school general music and junior high. Um conducted the choir, had church choir jobs in the community chorus.
and then got a job at Ohio State and my grandparents, my mother's parents lived. very near us. in Michigan and my dad got the college job, which of course is a, you know. More fulfilling thing for a guy who wants to be a music teacher and make the best music he can as a choir conductor. But he actually took a slight cut in pay to start as a as a entry-level associate professor.
and took my mother away from her parents. And I didn't know any of this at the time, but my grandfather was like... Why are you taking my grandchildren away? and my daughter so you can make less money. It was a whole thing there.
So every summer we'd go and visit back up in Detroit and then we'd also visit my dad's family on the farm in Illinois. and living in the burbs of Columbus when he taught at the Ohio State University. What do you think growing up in the Midwest, what kind of effect did growing up in the Midwest have on you? I mean, I'm a Midwest. snob, I guess, which is kind of a reverse snob, right?
The flyover states, right, were the ones that, you know, the elites on the coast, you know, looked down on, literally. But you know, my mom's from the south side of Chicago and my dad grew up on a farm. I just said Chicago, and my dad grew up on a farm in west central Illinois, so obviously by... The Midwest roots run deep. My father was always an academic.
My mother once once My little brother was in kindergarten and she could resume a full life of having a career and motherhood. She was in arts administration and this and that for many years. And then when I was 17 and got out of high school a year early because I was so smart. Um Why did you?
Well, it was a combination of, I was a good test taker. Really good test taker.
So when we when we were juniors and we were taking out the ACT, the SAT and all that, I was like, you know, very good scores, because not that I was that smart or had that much actual knowledge, I was just... I could always suss out tests really well. And I got good grades despite the fact that I went from for being very jock-centered. blowing out my knees and then becoming a full-on hippie. you know Turn on, tune in, drop out kind of.
paint in the posterior to the high school administration. who were happy to see me go because Ohio University started an early admissions program. The start of the year that my pal Randy and I were juniors and we had both applied to OU just because, you know, you're just applying to colleges in Ohio and... And they said, hey, if you want to skip your senior year of high school, you can come here now. like barely 17, not a brain in our heads.
And as long as your high school agrees to you know, give you your diploma. after your freshman year, then, you know. And we were like, yeah, sign us up. And our high school was like, yeah, great. Bye.
And we went and after two quarters there, I decided I actually did like choirs and music and classical music and Maybe I did maybe want to follow in my dad's footsteps after all, and I transferred up to Ohio State. And I thought I'd be able to go to my high school commencement. And they said, no, no, no, that's... You broke the rules. You have to do this at Ohio University, so.
So I never graduated from a high school dropout. Uh But actually a doctor of humane letters. my honorary degree from an actual Bachelor of Music degree. And then an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. From University of Montana, where my dad ended up and where my sister and brother and I all graduated.
That's great. Yeah, so take that, Worthington High School.
So Sorry, go Cardinals.
So if Your first love was clearly music, at least when you figured out what you wanted to do.
So then, how did Acting, how'd you end up in acting? Uh I was I was doing an opera. I was doing my one professional opera. I took a semester off at University of Montana. because I got hired, I don't know how, to play Figaro in the marriage of Figaro with the Great Falls Opera Company, the Great Falls Symphony.
And they brought in pros like legit pros from Seattle opera and regional opera companies. When I came back, my little brother was in a community theater production of Oliver. Directed by our old pal, Jim Carron. Hi, Jim. And um And they had just some, it's community theater, right?
So.
Some guy that went, yeah, I'll be in community theater, was playing the knife grinder. in the big who will buy this beautiful morning sequence. And he decided, yeah, it's not for me.
So he just... flaked and After rehearsal, they said, hey, does anybody know a guy who can sing baritone and be in the chorus? Sing a few. And my brother goes, yeah, my brother, you know. Yeah, sure.
So I ended up doing that. and uh and just fell in love with the the the dramatic impact of musical theater. doing that show and uh When the set was being struck, and I was helping out with all of that. Just taking a break in Jim's office. literally feet up on the desk both of us smoking cigarettes because it's you know 19, whatever it was, 70.
Seven. And um And his phone rings and he goes, oh yeah, hello. Oh, hi, Don. Uh Whew, I don't know. Oh, you know what?
Maybe I'm looking at them right now. I'll call you back, you know. and they were looking for a music director. and actor at the Big Fork Summer Playhouse in Big Fork, Montana. Jim was directing shows up there that summer.
And he asked me if I wanted to go do that and I said, yeah, I love this stuff.
So that was the transition.
So, so, so bad. And because I was coming from this, because I was nervous. I mean, almost all young performers are nervous. And um And my first, this is such a long story. Oh my God.
We need to go to a commercial at this point.
So.
So my first rehearsal with Jim playing the lead in Brigadoon. You know, I walk out with my script and I read the first line, which is two Americans lost in the Scottish Highlands, you know. Here, let me see that map. And Jim goes. Good enough.
Okay. We had the little speech about this is not opera. This is more naturalistic. And so for the rest of the summer, I was like... Yeah, let me show that.
Oh, Fiona, I love you. I was trying to be, you know. Brando. Yeah. Um Unfortunately, over the years, found how to make it work for me in the in-between land, in between those two extremes.
You certainly did. With a lot of great direction, especially early on in my career, so many wonderful, like age-appropriate directors, starting with Jim Karen and Todd Peters. And John Kaufman out in Seattle and Jerry Zach's here on Broadway, so many, you know. If you listen, you learn. That's a very good point.
One that I try to tell my kids. Listen and learn, right? Um There's uh I don't want to I'm gonna lead you into this and see if you follow me. Have you had any of those moments? where you think This is going to be the worst thing that ever happened to me.
and it ends up being the best thing. Yeah. Um one leaps out. Um I was it was my Second Broadway show. There was this kid from Scarsdale named Aaron Sorkin who had a play.
called a few good men. And in my Monday night poker game, one of the guys, my pal Jeff Brooks, had just seen that play. And he says, oh my God, I just saw a play and there's a part for you. I mean, you know, someday in regional theater when this play is, you know, he says, because that was the world we were all in, really. And then several months later, I get an audition to replace the understudy.
For the kernel. and the doctor, it's a character who's not in the movie, but it's a lovely little two-scene part of the play.
well into their run. and Ron Perlman had replaced Stephen Lang as the colonel. Brad Whitford had replaced as Lieutenant Caffey. Great. Great cast, fantastic production.
And of course all of us who did the play, you know. I think the play is Better than the movie? Um And I, you know, so I did what you do on Broadway. You learn your little part, and I had zero lines, but I was standing on stage a lot and moving furniture. And then every Thursday you have an understudy rehearsal with the stage manager and all the understudies.
Learned the doctor scenes, learned the colonel scenes. Ron. Yeah. came to my dressing room and said, hey, if you're ready. I'm going to take a break and go because his life was in California and he wanted to take a long weekend.
And I was, you know, equal parts thrilled and terrified. And I said, yeah, I'm ready. And I went on and played the kernel with... Brad Whitford was so such a rock of support, you know, as I was sweating bullets and you know just high on adrenaline and uh and it was it was fantastic it was it was still on the handful of the most rewarding experiences I've had as an actor in my life. The right guy, right place, right time.
write cast, write everything. Can totally see you as Colonel Jessup. It was. Uh It was maybe the most in it I've ever been on stage. Fantastic.
And um And then a couple of months later, it was... Braun's contract was up and it was time to... Have a new actor play the colonel. And, you know, Aaron had seen me do it. and had been, you know, very kind and moved by what I brought to it.
But none of the producers had seen it. And this was all the old school Schubert, Schoenfeld, all the old school Broadway guys. And who are lovely. And um So they had to replace the colonel. It was late in the run and everybody's like, well, you know, this guy, maybe, you know.
And I and I auditioned again for the for the producers and and you know they said it was great and uh and then they hired a T V guy 'cause That's You know, you got to sell tickets. And uh and I was Like so naive about the way all of this works, you know. and heartbroken, like heartbroken.
So angry and um And went to my agent's office the next day and I was I was in terrible shape. I said, I can't, I can't stay there. I can't stay there. and stand at attention and parade rest and watch somebody else do this part of a lifetime. I can't do it.
Get me anything, anything, anything. and they were looking to replace Captain Hook. In a national tour Broadway revival of Peter Pan with Kathy Rigby. And they asked me to do it. Not even sure if I even auditioned.
It might have been the first time I did an audition. And uh And I went to see the show and I was like, this is great. It's a really fun production.
So I took the demotion from colonel to captain. And one on the road. like still dragging my tail between my legs and and sad and Bitter. And then two months into that tour, this new beautiful little Young actress, dancer, singer joined the cast to play Tiger Lily. We're going to be celebrating our 30th anniversary.
So Okay. That is so beautiful. It has a pretty good ending. It sure does. And it sure shows you that like the moment that you think is the worst.
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Find the one worth keeping. I know your kids were a little bit younger when you did Juno. You weren't the father of a teenager at that point. But do you think being a dad helped you with that role? 100%.
I mean, I was always a... 50-year-old character actor waiting to happen, you know, even when I was in my 20s, you know, seriously? I mean, I lost my hair, started going when I was doing summer theater in Big Fork when I was 21, 22. It's like the signs were there. I finally had to cut it, by the way, from my Greg Allman hair.
which I was so vain about when I started to go. Oh, when it started to go, yeah.
Well, no, just to do theater. Oh, to do theater, gotcha. My mother. Thank you, Mom. She tried to convince me.
When when my hair was lying, believe me, my parents were. like very tolerant, very liberal, like like progressive people. But nobody loves seeing their kids hair just like go completely crazy. And uh and about the time that It was super long when I was in college. There were signs, you know, that it wasn't going to be there a lot longer.
And my mother was like, I think maybe the length of your hair. is like too heavy and it's... Pulling your hair out. Oh yeah, nice dry mom. But I did have to get it.
I had to get it cut to play Tommy Albright in Brigadoon. Ah. But yeah, so anyway, yes, I was. You know, the beauty of the Big Fork Summer Playhouse, which we did four musicals in rep, was you were, you know, you're the lead one night, you're the third guy from the left in the chorus the next night, and then you're some goofy character part. you know, another night.
So I really got to, I learned so much there. And um I would already been playing people's dads for a while. And then, yeah, when Juno came along, it was so, well, first of all, thank you, Jason Reitman. It was such a Fantastic experience for all of us. And a great opportunity for me to play Mac.
And to to really, really, that's the first one that I really recall. you know, the kind of empathy that parenthood brings out in us Um that that it was just so natural to to feel you know, the big scene where Juno, you know. and her friend confess to the parents, you know. on the page really could have been interpreted in such a variety of ways, you know, with the exact same words, the brilliant Diablo Cody words, but to me it was such a it was such a Yeah. I mean, anger wasn't.
part of the equation. Until after they left the room and I make the comment about punching Paulie Bleecker. It was just heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking for it. a dad to see his 16-year-old kids.
having to deal with such an adult reality, you know.
So I hadn't experienced adolescence yet from a fatherhood point of view, but it absolutely being a father has informs everything I've done since then in in my work and in Life. Do you think you were married at, what, 36 and became a dad at 36? No, we met. I was 36 when Michelle and I met. and she was 24.
Which is sort of now as my kids are. You know. in their 20s. I'm like, and that's the maximum. That more than that is bad.
It's bad, yes. No, that's okay. Same age difference of me and my husband. I think it's perfect. It's a beautiful thing.
But you waited a while to get married. You waited a while to have a moment. Young and stupid. I mean, I was 36 going on 19 when I met Michelle, and she was a... mature, self-sufficient 24-year-old adult woman, you know.
We had our ins and outs and our ups and downs. We didn't get married until I was 41. And Joe was born when I was 43.
So I mean, we were recognized once. when Olivia was about. Around Juno time actually, Olivia was probably, you know, six. My parents were visiting in LA.
So Michelle and I and the kids and my parents were going to a mall to see a movie.
Some nice lady went, oh, I saw you in the, you know, whatever it was, and, you know. having a little chat, and my parents are glowing with pride over there, and she looks down at Olivia and she goes, you know, your grandpa's famous. And I'll leave you guys. He's my dad. Thank you.
Okay. The wisdom that comes with waiting, right? Yes. Yeah. And then and then people, you know.
People thinking that Michelle might be my niece or my daughter or something as we're out and about in public.
So you've always played a little older, that's okay.
Well, yeah, up until now.
Now I'm playing sort of, you know.
Sort of the age that I am, trying to think the last time a character I played actually said his age. I mean now people are, you know, people are ever since all the trophies. 10 or 11 years ago, you know, people will throw scripts at me that are like, Is it 52 year old, you know, this and that, and I'm like, nope. Yeah. I'm not.
And you'll turn those down.
Well It's sort of a pet peeve of mine as an audience and as an actor to see. You know, people just just Trying to hang on to their youth and obviously like I said, I was you know, I never got by on my boyish good looks in my career, so You know, it's easy for me to to say, no, I'm not going to try to play a guy who's 25 years younger than I am, it doesn't make sense. If the character could be 71 years old, Let's talk about it, you know, but but I'm not gonna, I mean, what are you gonna do? And no. you may not do.
Computer based on the AI thing, yes, no, not happening. No. No. So let's talk about that film that. got you all the trophies.
Yeah. How Life changing was Whiplash. I mean, career-changing, you know, a million percent. It was, and I was already like. Really happy with where I was.
You were doing fine. Yeah, I mean, I had done a The closer, you know, for seven years in LA and lots of films, Juno, you know, I mean, I was in Jason's first film, Thank You for Smoking. I was in... Every Jason Wright would have been a cameo or something. It was Jason who sent the script for Whiplash.
And he and Helen Esterbrook had been talking to Damien about possible casting for Fletcher. They suggested me and Damien went, yeah, I like that idea. We had a meeting and um You know, the whole experience was I mean from getting that email from Jason and going. Like Yeah. already being excited.
And I saw genius on the page and I thought, I hope this. kid that nobody ever heard of. who's a year or two out of film school, you know, can direct. And then we did the short film shortly after that for zero money in like three days. And they took it to Sundance and...
I was in LA doing a sitcom, so didn't go to Sundance and it won all the things and got all the funding to shoot the feature. 16 months later, I think, where Miles and I are shooting. you know, a a a piece of Cinema, art that we'll all always be proud of. And um It was a fantastic Experience Miles so good in that movie, and it was so hard for him to tame his alpha male, you know. And be the one that I berate.
What were you guys like between takes? Total idiots. talking sports and you know giving each other a hard time and you know Miles, just being miles and me being. My dumbass self. You did not stay in character.
We did not. I mean, sometimes I do, sometimes I do more and less. Mm-hmm. For me, oftentimes it goes hand in hand with having to do an accent or a dialect. that it's more difficult to jump back and forth all the time, but Fletcher was just...
you know, a guy from my background, you know, so there was no reason to impose any kind of you know, speech, dialect or accent or anything different with him. And I didn't want to live in that. place of Of you know, anger and uh um I didn't cut that. Be that guy. That makes sense.
Having said that, Everything. Fletcher does in the movie, everything Fletcher does in his life. is motivated the intensity of his love. for jazz music and his overarching need. to create Perfection.
which as we know, humans do not create. Um in jazz music and if you're in the way of that. You'll get hurt. You'll get hurt. But there you go.
It's like finding the humanity, like we were talking about, the Westies, and trying to find that in what's the humanity, what's the love. Finding the way in with those kind of evil characters. I want to talk just briefly about your Oscar's speech. When you said, please call your mom, call your dad. Do people thank you for that?
They do. Yeah. Uh it was It was. Spur of the moment, in that I knew I wanted to talk about family, I knew I wanted to first. Talk about my wife and and And thank her.
Um Talked about her, talked about our kids who were up in the balcony. which took me to motherhood, which took me to call your mom. Call your dad, call your mom, call your dad, call your parents. Um Yeah, and I heard I mean So many stories of like people who were estranged. And because some, you know.
random bald white guy on a on a stage, you know. said call your mom, they called their mom or they called their dad or they and you know like really dramatic stories of reconciliations. Because I said that. We have to talk Spider-Man for just a moment. Sure.
What is the key to J. Jonah Jameson? Um Okay. Thank you, Sam Raimi. Uh That was I had done two movies in a row with Sam, For Love of the Game and The Gift.
which is I think a underrated, maybe underseen gem of a movie. And during the gift, the announcement came out that Sam was directing. this Spider-Man, they're going to make a movie of Spider-Man, you know? I mean, this was... the beginning of Marvel, really, you know?
And, you know, friends are calling and saying, hey, you talk to Sam, you should play the bad guy, you know, because I play a lot of bad guys. And I never did. Talk to Sam about, hey, can I be in your next movie? You know, I've never seen it come to you. No.
But Sam, you know. knew that he wanted me to play Jameson. Of course he had to convince, you know, it's a lot of money at stake, so the powers to be had to sign off on it.
So I, you know, I auditioned as I always did.
So I did, they did the scenes, including the scene where the green goblin like chokes me and lifts me up, you know, up in the air. You know trying to somehow play that. Whatever. And this was the first time I was aware of. the power of uh uh the fanboy you know or fan person world right on the internet because I was I went to that audition in the morning.
Did the audition. You know? Later that afternoon, I'm at Gray Advertising. where my wonderful Uncle Dave used to work. who I camped with when I moved here.
Thanks, Dave and Connie. And I'm auditioning for a voiceover at Grey Advertising for whatever it might be. And you go, you sign in, you sit down in the waiting room, you see the usual suspects that you're auditioning with. Often. The guy comes out to go, okay, JK, you're next.
So I'm walking back. And as I walk past this Young. person in the you know in the company rolls out in his desk chair, goes, JK. Congratulations. And I go.
Thank you for what? And he goes. For what? He goes, J. Jonah Jameson.
It was just posted online. Oh, gosh. That I was playing J. Jonah Jameson. That's how you found out.
And I go and do my voiceover audition, and I finish that, and I get on my bike. Literally. And the phone rings, and I get off my bike, and it's my agent. I go, yeah, I know. That's how I found out I was playing J.
Jonah Jameson. Which at the time we didn't even know was It's going to be a, you know, obviously you don't know what it's going to be. We thought it was a standalone. Thing and then they, after they made the offer and kind of worked out the deal, then they called my agent back and said, oops. We actually need a three-picture commitment from your client.
Major went, oh, interesting. I mean, I just saw this guy as... straight off the comic pages. You know, snarling with that big, I wore fake teeth. Because my teeth, I've since had them straightened, but they were a little crooked at the time, and I wanted to have that.
Big mouth full of white straight teeth. Obviously the flat top, the mush, you know, the whole. Thing. Um And just to have that sort of Preston Sturgis. vibe you know It totally worked.
It was super fun. When you, what do you think the guy waiting tables here back in the 80s would think? of what's happened to JK Simmons? You know, we were sitting right over here, standing. at the end of the bar.
One day Between the the post-matine rush and the pre-evening show rush. Smoking cigarettes. Um as So many of us did. Like Four or five. maybe six waiters and bartender.
And uh you know, just some rare sort of downtime to kind of chat and get to know each other a little better and, oh, what do you do? Oh, I'm an actor. Oh, I'm a dancer, you know, I want to direct, you know. And this one guy, and we're all... you know, youngish, you know, in our twenties.
And this one guy, Regan. It's kind of like, you know, his turn, and he goes, I'm a waiter. And we go, yeah. Yeah, fine. Yeah, Dave, we're all waiters, you know?
And he's like, no. This is my career. I like this. I'm a waiter. I want to move, I want to be at a fancy steakhouse, I want to make more money, you know, but this is my career.
And it was such a great, like, sort of back to that Midwest ethic, like. Oh yeah, this is This is a thing. This is like people do this and want to be a server. And that's a fulfilling thing to do on a daily basis and get paid for and enjoy your life, you know.
So, Regan, I hope you're. either retired or like At the fanciest steakhouse in Manhattan. Right. Yeah. When you look at all you've done and all you're doing now and getting ready to do, what do you think?
Yeah. Crazy. The the good fortune I've had in my career. In my life. More importantly, um You know, before whiplash.
As I said, I was already, you know. I'm so blessed and fortunate to to not be auditioning all the time, to be doing good work, to be working with fantastic directors and actors. It's crazy. It's crazy to think back on. you know, the nervous guy at the Big Fork Summer Playhouse being...
Such a terrible actor. I'm starting to learn. how to channel what's in here. more intelligently. Um yeah.
It's crazy. And I'm grateful every day. Um yeah. and trying to But those are games. All of it.
I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts. What is Toyota Affordability?
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