John C. Reilly

Today, Ilana was thrilled to meet and talk with actor, comedian, singer John C. Reilly. For decades, and through his unique expression of sincerity and comedy, John’s performances have shaped the impact of American movie classics—like Chicago, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Step Brothers. Ilana and John discuss his current and recent projects: a one-man-plus-band musical performance MR. ROMANTIC and the surreal Italian-American Western feature film HEADS OR TAILS. John discusses his love for singing love songs, his belief that kindness is absolutely everything, and nature-vs-nurture when both your sons are working models. Come on in, it’s open.

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Host: Ilana Glazer
Producers: David Rooklin, Annika Carlson, Madeline Kim, Kelsie Kiley, Glennis Meagher
Video Producers: Lexa Krebs, Louise Nessralla
Audio Producers: Nicole Maupin, Rachel Suffian, Rebecca O’Neill
Lighting Director: Kevin Deming
Editor: Tovah Leibowitz
Graphics: Raymo Ventura
Outro Music: Don Hur

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to It's Open with Alana Glazer. I am just buzzing and my heart is full and my mind is inspired by the interview I just had. I'm I'm so excited. It was John C. Riley. It is John C. Riley, the the episode you're about to watch. But damn, dude, he is, you know, so I opened it up like love bombing him. You'll see in a second. I didn't mean to, but like, dude, he's one of the fucking best actors on the planet. He's an American treasure, and it's because he's always leading with his heart. He always, I mean, really, this person, this actor, this vessel for human love always leads with his heart, which you will see so clearly um exuded, but also articulated in our conversation. He said, I've been in 80 films. I'm like, girl, I just was like Googling your IMDB and there were 118 credits. Holy shit. This guy has done so made so much work and such a range. He is um obviously people know him for his comedic roles, but I actually like know him most from his uh tragic roles. And my first like look into John C. Riley was Magnolia, which was devastating, and yet he was hilarious in it, actually. God damn, I am so um that was so wonderful, and I'm so privileged to have just recorded this conversation, which I really hope and quite frankly, no, you'll enjoy. I don't know. So come on in, it's open. Johnson Riley, I am so excited to interview you. I'm so I'm honored. You're you know, as I am coming to this this morning, and I was telling my parents last night on the phone with them that I'm interviewing you and the crew here interviewing you. We're all so excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I love that your parents like me too.

unknown 1:58

Bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Because I'm one of those people like uh children like me, older people like me, you know, like the middle likes you. Rappers love me, surfers love me. Like I have these weird little pockets of people that appreciate me.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah. It's nice. You you're beloved. Um, you're literally one of the you're one of the best actors on the planet. I'm gonna try to do it in like at the side of my mouth, you know, so it's not so embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

One of the best actors on the planet.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

One of the best actors on the planet, incredible drama, so funny, also, but also just um I guess it's the humanity you offer. It's an amazing balance, I guess, is what it is. Like you are offering absolutely something true of yourself while holding the responsibility of not offering your personal self, but you're offering like a true party, a piece of your you're offering your heart truly in your roles.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Well, I've always been someone that's like, I know how to be sincere.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Like, and that's this what that's what I do. I try to be as sincere as I can be. And if I'm being sincere about something absurd, then I'm in a comedy. And if I'm being sincere about something more serious, then I'm in a drama, you know. Like, but to me, it's it's the same, you know?

SPEAKER_03 3:12

So you have a vaudevillean show called Mr. Romantic. Yeah, this is really sincere and like gorgeous too. It's a uh one-man show where you're trying to get the audience to fall in love with you.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

It's it's not quite a one-man show because it's me and four musicians who are part of the show with me, but yeah, it's uh well, I did this movie, uh Chicago, where I played this character, Mr. Cellophane, and it was so fun. It was like this rediscovering of doing musicals for me, which I grew up doing. And uh I thought, like, wow, I really love this kind of performance, very performative and hard on your sleeve, and really trying to connect with the audience. And music is so like that, you know, you can kind of skip people's brains and go right to their hearts, like and I thought, I want to keep doing this, like I wish more musicals were being made. And and then it kind of like just went away, and I whatever, got into my next job and life moved on. I kept thinking, like, I really should, I really want to do that. But I have to find like more songs than Mr. Sullivan, like and so over time I started collecting songs that I thought were as powerful as that song that were in the same vein, like, and it ended up being kind of a lot of Irving Berlin songs and songs from the American Songbook. And um, I collected songs for like 20-something years. Wow. Kept thinking, like, I ought to do that, I really ought to do that. That would be fun. I have to make time to do that sometime. And I just, you know, and still collecting playlists of music, and then I had this big body of music, and I finished that TV show I did on HBO, and I was like, really ready to be free again. You know, I felt kind of trapped on that TV show because it was only supposed to be two years, and it ended up being four years because of uh winning time about the Lakers on HBO. And so it just ended up being this much longer time commitment, and it was kind of just confining somehow, and I was like, I just want to go on stage and improvise and sing love songs, and also I was it was this is four years ago now that we started doing it. It was dawning on me like the world has become like a really hard-hearted place. Like, what happened to empathy? Why is sincerity not cool anymore? Like, wait a minute, and I just told you, like, what the place I operate from is sincerity. Like, that's what I do with my acting. And I was like alarmed by what I was seeing and all the different political stuff that was happening, and wars and school shootings, and I was like, what can I do? What can I do? And also, I'm 60 years old now, done 80-something movies.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Holy shit!

SPEAKER_00 5:48

So the so the thrill of that is still cool to be an actor, but after a while, you're like, Well, I worked with Martin Scorsese, I worked with Terence Malik, I worked with Paul Anderson. Like, what do what do I want to do now? What will give my own life meaning? And I decided to do the show, Mr. Romantic, which is about getting people to think about love, basically. Um, he's this sort of mythical character. Uh, you know, the band comes in from the back of the theater, this they pull out the steamer trunk and it says Mr. Romantic on it, and it sits there for a long time until you think like, well, he can't be in there. And then I come out of the box, I am in there, and I say, Hello, I'm Mr. Romantic. I don't know what happened before. All I know is that I have to stay in that box. And when I come out of the box, I have to put on a show. And I don't have to go back into the box if I can find one person who will love me forever. And so that's like the thesis of the show. And then I go out into the audience, I meet people, men and women, you know, I say, like, I'm not gay or straight, I'm desperate. I'm just trying to find someone to love me. Like, in other words, like in a weird way, like an active representation of love is love, that thing that we say when we talk about rights for gay people and stuff. And but just really do it, show it, you know, talk to some macho guy in the audience and try to get him to fall in love with you. Not ask him to compromise what how he feels about that kind of stuff, but just make a connection with him, you know. So I go through the crowd and I meet different people, and then I go back on stage and I design it. I won't explain exactly how I do this, but I design it so I fail every time. And I go back on stage and then I'll sing like What D'Lill I Do by Irving Berlin. But if I've just talked to you, I was like, this one's for Alana.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

And I sing, What'll I do to you? Which makes the audience feel like you're like a representative of them. So it's almost like I'm singing the song in a more personal way directly to them. Like, and then the show goes on, and I I f I fail over and over again, and we play all these beautiful love songs, very invocative.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Your voice, it sounds so beautiful, it's so beautiful and gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah, so I mean, secretly, that's like the real reason for the show is because I just wanted to do all these songs. Cool. But one thing led to another, and I became this kind of empathy mission. Yeah. And I thought, well, let's see how this feels. And I kind of improvised my way through it at first, and then it we kind of found this form, this arc that happens during the show. And it it feels like a theatrical kind of experience. It's not like a music show. Although there is great music, my musicians are incredible. Like, um, but anyway, and I thought, let's see how that feels. Like, I'm not really good at marching around with picket signs. And you know, a lot of times I feel personally that people who like me as an actor don't really want to hear my political opinions. I have them. I think every person in our whole country should feel free to express, express as citizens, you know, their views about things and and try to show up for their ethics, you know. But um, I'm not, you know, I've just never, I I guess it really comes down to like, I've always been someone who played characters. And that's I'm most comfortable like presenting that to the world, not telling you exactly who I am, but presenting it. And then I I've done maintenance over the years to make sure like it never that I never betray that. Like I never say, like, well, this is what I really am, because I need people that when they come see me, they'll be like, he could be that. I don't know. I don't know. So anyway, I I did this show out of despair and joy and and trying to address what was going on in the world and trying to like make my own life more meaningful, and it worked. Like the the show scores every time. We just did it in Houston, Texas, you know, and there's Where'd you play? Uh place called the Hobby Center. I did two nights there. Done it at the Steppenwolf in Chicago, the Hotel Carlisle in New York. Like, anyway, we've done it all. I've done it in London, Dublin, like, and it works a hundred percent of the time. Yes. It's incredible. When you say, like, I meet you, I'm like, Alana, oh, what a beautiful color red your sweater is. You wore that for the show. Like, you just see someone. I mean, we all talk about this. I want to be seen, I wish I could be seen, you know. You see someone, and you really imagine the best of them, right? Well, maybe we could fall in love. Maybe you could love me, you know. If you approach someone like that, it's like open sesame. It's incredible. People just go, okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

And all of a sudden the whole show becomes this like safe place where we explore the ideas of could I could I be loved? Could I love someone forever? Do human beings in general, are they worthy of love, even if you don't know them, you know? Right. And that's what I believe that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Yeah. You said despair and joy earlier. You know, it sounds like this like sort of softer, almost your baby self. Some part, you know, some part of you that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

It is a very true reflection of me. You know, that if you if you did really know me, you would know that that was a really true reflection of me. Um I kind of stumbled into the whole show and the things that I say, like coming out of the box. I just, for some reason, right before we did the show, I was like, I've always wanted to have the be carried in inside of a box and come out of a box. I don't know why. I don't know why, but I was like, but I'm gonna get a trunk and that's what I'm gonna do. And then I was like, why would he be in a box? Well, maybe he just has to live in that box. Maybe it's like an interdimensional TARDIS like box or something. And like, okay, well then why does he come out? Well, he comes out because he and like so I figured out the rules kind of on the fly. But what it does when you say, I'm Mr. Romantic, I don't know what happened before. You relieve the audience of the past. You relieve the audience of John C. Riley. It just becomes an immediate thing right now, these 90 minutes together. This is who I am. And they know I'm pretending, they know it's John Riley, they know you know, but it's a game that we play and they want to play that game, you know, like totally. And it and uh just brings everyone into the present moment, which is really the most important thing about theater and performance, is like just forget everything that's outside of these walls. Like, what can we create together right now?

SPEAKER_03 12:22

You're so good and accomplished and experienced as an actor to see you lit up creatively and like it's just it's so inspiring. It's really it's you know, creating your own stuff really like lights a person up.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I also just thought, like, like my rule about taking roles these days is like, you know, I whatever, I'm getting older. I don't want to just roll out of bed for every single thing that I'm offered, and I don't like to do things I really shouldn't be doing, like for money or whatever. I I really try to make everything I pick be a passion project. But um at this point, I thought, well, so when I when I'm deciding whether to take a role, it's like, does it have to be me? Does it have to be? You know, if I didn't do this, would this not be would this character not be served well by some by anyone else? That's why I played Oliver Hardy. I was like, you it can't be me. I can't play Oliver Hardy. I can't, it can't be me. Surely there's another guy out there who's already chubby or whatever that you could get. And they're like, John, there is nobody else. It's you. And you actually are a lot like him. Your voice sounds like him. When you sing, you sound like Oliver Hardy. If we put the makeup on you, you'll look just like it. And I was like, all right, I have to do it because it has to be me.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

So um so cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

When I was putting the show together, I was like, well, what other actor is doing this with their capital? And what by capital I mean like your recognizability in the audience. And I feel like this show is like a my giving back to the audience for giving me so much all this time. Like, what am I gonna do with my time now? I don't need to be more famous. I have enough money. My kids are grown up, you know. Like, what's gonna be meaningful? What what what can I leave the world with? And that's one of the things, talk about all Oliver Hardy. He also was a beautiful singer. When he was a young man, he he was gonna be an opera singer. He was that good, you know. And then he just that fell to the side and got involved in comedy and doing he met Stan Laurel and he's become two of the most famous clowns in history. And I love his singing, but there's only like four songs, and they're all in movies that those guys did. Wow. I thought, what a shame. And I thought when I started playing that part, I'm like, well, surely there's got to be an Alvar Hardy recording somewhere, even if it didn't come out. He must have gone into a studio. He was a beautiful singer, he had to do it. He didn't do it.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So I thought, don't let that happen to you, John. Wow. If you love singing and you want to share this with people and you think it's an important thing to share the love of music and all passing music along to people, then you should do it. Don't let your don't die without an album being made of your of your singing. So we have an album that came out from Mr. Romantic in last June. We're gonna have another one coming out in the coming year.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

So you call it a vaudeville show, you and four musicians.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Or a clown show or an emotional magic show, or you know, it has the DNA of a lot of different things. Like when the band plays solos, I do these crazy spacework pantomimes of like knocking on a door with a bouquet of flowers, and someone answers, and I give it to the flowers, I turn around to get my mouth ready for a kiss, I come back and I knock on the door again. The person's not there anymore.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Like, get my mouth ready for a kiss is hysterical. I do like that perfume thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Warming it up. Because I've always thought, like, when I watch music, as virtuosic as musicians are, when it gets into the noodle noodle noodle noodle noodle noodle, like the jazz long, extended jazz solo or the bluegrass solo or whatever. Like, I'm always like, oh, I wish someone was telling me a story right now. This is a little bit boring. Um, so that I just decided I warned the musicians like, listen, I know you guys are used to getting like a little round of applause after you do a solo, but I'm gonna totally take the spotlight while you're doing your solo. And the music will still be there. And people always say they love the music so much and they really love the band. But I I keep it going, I keep them entertained the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Like oh, I can't wait to see it.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

And in terms of male and female stuff, we we spoke a little bit yesterday before I came in here, but I personally think um, I know there's a lot of political things that need to change, and uh democracy is under threat and all this stuff, but I really think at the heart of it all, every major imbalance in the world on a mighty in a macro and a macro scale is because of the imbalance between male and female energy. Yeah, and this whole place we're in about trans issues and and gender issues and all this, the weaponization of woke against, woke, all this bullshit. Like, I think it's just it's ignoring the fact that we are all just a certain percentage of male and female. There's very macho women, there's very effeminate men, you know, like we're all we're not, it's not an on-off switch, you know. I mean, the internet has taught us that. That's right. Computers have trained our minds to think like computers. Right. Computers only know zero or one.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Red, blue, binary code, right, left. Yeah. That's all they know, you know. But and the truth of human beings is we are analog, you know, and we're we're mixtures of things. Yeah. You know, and we're and we're evolving too.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

You know, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So I think like if we're gonna solve any of the world's problems, we have to get the balance of male and female, or at least the respect of the fact that everyone has male and female in us. We we've got to get that as a commonly held belief because every fanatical religion, what's the first thing they do? Smack the women down, yeah, and you know, hold up the patriarchy, and that's just an imbalance.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

It doesn't work because it's not true about human beings. It's an imbalance, right? It's a misrepresentation of the truth about human beings.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

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SPEAKER_00 19:39

But no, I I'm not judging social media, by the way. I just know that it doesn't work for me. It's I'm too sensitive. I think it's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

It don't work for me either, John C. Ryan.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

But it's an important tool and it's given many people like a livelihood. I don't, I get it.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

But even to speaking to the thing earlier about separating selves, I'm like starting to like delete content. I'm like, I can't believe I confused this for a personal container at all. This is a professional tool. This is not a container for my personal memory. Ugh. Like to who, Zuck? Like, no.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

At the bottom of a lot of it, isn't it just how to make other people jealous of what you have? Like, and I don't relate to that at all.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

Garbage in that way, in that way. But a lot of um, you know, too much information, but a lot of great information is shared, a lot of um awesome messaging can be shared, and human rights messaging can be shared too. But all that to say, oh, there's like, you know, this really um pointed campaign at young men and women to weaponize this concept of gender binary and trad wives, you know, and and whatever. And I'm just like, I'm I'm a uh woman, queer as I may be, I'm a woman married to a man. You're perverting my own everyday experience partnered with a man, like all this messaging is so fake about it, it's um it's just not reality. It's it's barely virtual reality, it's just fake.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

And I know And it's so as much as I kind of I think that the legacy media of the past, like the three networks and whatever, as much as that was like oppressive and carried a certain point of view and was very hard to break out of, at least it was somewhat regulated. At least there was an up maybe an objective truth to what they're saying. The scary thing about social media is it's completely unregulated. So it just depends on what kind of wormhole you fall into and how susceptible you are at a moment to believe things, you know. So it's you know, it's social media has caused caused death. Yes, you know, things take off on Facebook and all of a sudden people are rioting and want to kill some other religious minority. Like it has a real danger to it.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

It's true. I have those same thoughts about legacy media and being like, well, when I was a kid in the 90s watching whatever a man and a woman looked like and feeling bad about myself or something, like this was regulated by the government and we were. Sharing a reality about it. Whereas being alone in a um systematically fractured reality, they want to fracture our, or you know, the billionaires who own the algorithms want to fracture our reality. It's um what a bizarre way to use your privilege and fortune.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

What a fucking bizarre way.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

But my point was Did you see the social dilemma, that documentary about social media?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

I am scared too because I'm kind of like, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

No, you should see it. Knowledge is power. I that's the one I turned off everything with social media. I was kind of lurking to spy on my sons when they were younger. When they became 18 and I saw that movie, I was like, I don't need this. I don't need this in my life. I I shut it off. But um the reason I bring it up is that underneath it, like you could say, like, oh, these companies are trying to like connect us. They're trying to like you know, create community. That's what they want to say. But what they want is money. I mean, capitalism is amoral. Yeah, you know, it doesn't give a shit about ethics. Yeah, it just wants your money, but it's dressed up in all these different ways, you know. Yeah. And someone thinks that I'm just sharing the picture of my beautiful cheeseburger today, but no, you're making some guy money.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah, you know, and but the thing that I was um just thinking about in the messaging about marriage and how bizarrely off and fake it feels to me is just your um, you know, your uh your human rights values around gender and the fact that you've been married for such a long time.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, I've been married for 34 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

God bless you. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I mean Hollywood platinum right there.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

I never thought to Google your you and your wife before interviewing you, but I did, and she just looks like a badass. She just looks so cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Very accomplished, wonderful painter, incredible producer, and yeah, I mean, where would I be without her? It's so sweet. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

34 years. So you're 60. So you guys met in your 20s.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah, in uh yeah. No, I meant she I met her on my first movie. She used to work for Sean Penn, and I and that was the first movie I did, it was called Casualties of War. Wow. But in terms of like standing up for gay people or standing up for the rights of anyone to express themselves in the gender that they want or in the sexual way that they want or whatever, I've been, I was raised by gay people. Not I came from a super hardcore uh Catholic, Irish Catholic, tough neighborhood. But the people I gravitated to were gay. They weren't out, but like the nuns at the school where I where I did plays at this girls' school, like those were gay women. They taught me how to sing, they taught me how to do musicals. Like, then like there's been so many important gay people in my life. I realized, like, well, at some point you mature and you're like, well, just because I advocate for gay people doesn't shade me as gay. It makes me realize it makes me like, I just realized like I owe so much to those people, to those people of that artistic bent and that kind of philosophy. Like, why wouldn't I protect those people? Those, you know, or why wouldn't I stand up? You know, it's if I stand up for myself, why wouldn't I stand up for you, no matter what your gender or your sexual orientation is? You know, that's human rights. Human rights is, you know, if you stand up for human rights, why is that a right or a left thing? Why aren't people on the right wing concerned about human rights? They're human too. This whole thing that like kind of has come into vogue of like empathy trap. You know, it's an empathy trap. You know, like that's what Elon Musk says like empathy is like, don't be fooled by the empathy trap. Yes, yes, yes you know, stick to your uh your agenda and what's best for you. Holy fuck. You know, don't start feeling bad for so-and-so. They're on their own thing. Look out for number one. Like, it's like, wait a minute, empathy is not a trap. Empathy is a superpower.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

It's what makes human beings exceptional, our ability to like look outside of ourselves. We're not an alligator trying to just get the next fish. You know, we're human beings, we can relate to something that's not us. That, you know, like that's a superpower. Like, and it's the and it's also the cornerstone of civilization. The fact that we we stay at the red light and don't just zoom out because we want to get through the life faster. Because what will happen? Well, we might smash into someone. Well, you don't know that person. Yeah, but I still don't want to smash into them. You know, like the those are the building blocks of civilization. That's the agreement. And to that we treat treat, I mean it's very Catholic too. Do unto others, you know, treat your brother as you would as you would treat yourself, you know, like and to your point about the right way. It's crazy that we have to argue for these things right now. It's crazy that's a really upside-down world feeling to me.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

And that is the thing that I think social media has like turned upside down and made so so confusing, you know, and and purposely confusing. Like, just what a lame I mean, you know, as a creative, somebody who's been so creative for so long since you were so like clearly knowing it as since you were a kid, how lame is it to profit off of this?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

You could be creating stuff that gives to people and profiting equally, or like who cares at a certain point, like if you don't have a good imagination, maybe you just go for the low-hanging fruit in the manosphere or whatever these you know, there's a lot of charlatans out there. And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

How do you like um how do you protect your your heart and your mind?

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Well, I don't read the comments, I don't know. And you're not on social media. I don't participate in social media. Um but also you've been in the game. I just I'm I'm careful who I let in, you know. I'm careful who I let in.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

And even shit like you go on walks, what's your thing?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Oh, I roller skate. I love to roller skate? Yeah. Oh my god. My own skates a little bit. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

Do you go to a place or you do it like just around?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale, California. It's like old school. It's just like the roller ink was when I was a little kid. That's cool. Like, I don't think they've renovated the place since the 70s or something. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

That's fun.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Uh, what else do we do? Yeah, I love to be out in nature. I love to, yeah. I mean, it's kind of boring stuff. Like, it's fucking dope. And it's human too. Playing music. You know, music is probably, you know, I struggle with depression and anxiety like a lot of people right now. So that's I learned that singing, and I give this as a free bit of advice to people who are struggling with depression. Even if you don't think of yourself as a singer, singing the vibration of singing, like literally physically, what it does to you is it heals you and makes you feel better. It does. Like there's something, this vagis nerve or something it's called in your somewhere in here. Like when you vibrate that, like it's good for you. Yeah. You know, like, and so even if I'm feeling really bummed out, I've had days when we have band rehearsal and the guys are coming over. I'm like, I don't even know if I can do this. You know, I'm so bummed out today. And you know, like with real depression, not just feeling bad about things, but real depression is like this cloud just parks it over your head, and you're like, Why do I feel like this? I don't, I logically don't want to feel like this. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't make any sense. I have a beautiful life, I'm safe, I'm healthy. Why can't I get out from underneath this thing? Yeah, and so there are days like that, and the band will be coming over for rehearsal. I'll stand up, I'll start to sing the song, and I almost start to crying right away. Like, uh, like it's just I just I needed to heal myself in that way. And it does, that does move the needle more than even kind of like talk therapy or trying to be grateful every day. Like I meditate every day, you know, which is another way of uh feeling gratitude. But um yeah, singing is like is a great human hack for kind of like waking up your heart and making yourself feel better.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

It's like going to the gym for your heart.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Yeah, singing. Yeah, I love it. Um, your kids, uh my kiddos, I have a little kiddo, and your kids are grown.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

How's that feel? That's fucking crazy to me. Ah! That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah, you know, the old cliche, appreciate it because it goes fast. It goes so much faster than you even realize right now.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

I'm so focused. My husband and I are so focused on paying such attention in the present to slow it down. It feels like it's working. Time is just weird too. Like, if you look back and you're like, we've been friends for 20 years, we've been together for 14 years. Like, time is just fucking weird. I I can't let it go fast. Because I know it does. I know it does.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

And I I made a decision early on when I had kids of like, I'm never working in the summer.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Because when they're out of school, I want to be their number one, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Um, yeah. I never share their identities or their names or their ages or even how many kids I had because I want I want them to have a private, you know, good childhood that they guide, you know?

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

And that their interests guide instead of like taking them to premieres and putting them on a red carpet or something like that. But now they're grown men, you know, they're 24 and 27, and they're out there in the world and they're trying to make a living too. So I'm happy to talk about them now.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

They're both they're both get modeling gigs. Weirdly. I'm like, I can't advise you on that because no one ever came knocking on my door for modeling.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

But are they so beautiful? Are they just gorgeous?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

They're gorgeous, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Oh my god. I mean, and it's like, you know, you see so they're nice.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

That's the more important and it's shining through their little eyes.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

They get a lot of attention for being handsome guys, you know. But and I was like, well, you're not seeing all of them. If you're just seeing the handsome part, they're really emp empathetic, yes, kind people, you know.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

They they kind of look like babies to me. I'm seeing my age child in your 20-somethings. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

This whole nurture nature thing, I used to think it was like maybe 50-50, you know, like I need to shape their points of view. I will teach them everything that they will learn from a human as a young person. And then you realize, like, wait a minute. Like, I look at them when they're 24 and 27, I'm like, those are the same babies. Yes. The energy that they both have, they had fr from birth. So, how much of it is nurture? And I'm like, I don't know, I think you have to protect them and take care of them. But but your main job as a parent, I think, is to pay attention to who they already are. Yes. And meet them there and support how it, you know, help them get through the world the way they are. Yes. Because it's actually kind of like incredibly condescending to think that you're shaping every thought and whatever, you know? 100% cared for and fed and and happy and pay attention to who they are. Make sure that they're in schools and stuff like that that are serving them and are working for them.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

But with the way the world is, I mean, you know, I s I feel what you're doing with Mr. Romantic in particular, but always always, truly always, the way you bring your heart and your like hard and softness to your roles. I see what you're doing, you know, uh uh what you're offering the world, but like specifically when thinking about young men and men in their 20s who don't have the you know, the awesome thing of you being their dad. Like, what what do you think of that you would want to say to like 20-something year old men right now who are being so all this like social media crap and all this redirecting and empathy trap?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I don't know. I know it gets into a tricky kind of like place for me when I'm like, here's your advice from on high, young man. This is what I'm learning. When I was in the when I was their age, it was a completely different world. So, like, what could I tell them? I don't know. I I could just tell them what works for me, which is like, don't read the comments, don't think that the virtual world is the real world, you know, like uh commitment, uh commitment is its own reward. It builds, it builds. I've been married for 34 years, you know. It wasn't always easy, but the more you commit to it, the more it grows, the more you get from it, you know. Like that's one of the things you hear about a lot. Like the young people are no longer having sex, they're not having long-term relationships, they can't commit. They're always looking over the their date shoulder for the next Tinder thing or whatever. Like, I don't know that that's a recipe for happiness, that kind of attitude, you know. I think if I were to give it, I don't know, I give advice to my own sons, you know, but um yeah, we just try to live an authentic life. I would say like let what you do every day reflect your ethics, you know, in both the larger public way and also the interpersonal one-on-one ways, you know. Kindness is an important kindness, is everything, literally everything. Yeah. So I don't know. Do with that what you will.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

I will. Last thing Heads or Tails is your new film that you're here in New York um doing a press tour for. It's gorgeous. Oh, thank you. And so exciting. It was so femme forward and uh in its beauty and actually execution. Nadia Terezkowitz, I mean, she just fucking killed it. And it was so gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

You know, she didn't speak Italian before she made the film. She's actually grew up in France. She's of Finnish extraction. She learned Italian. I mean, when people do that, I mean, that's very impressive to me. Like, I I struggled through high school Spanish. Uh-huh. The fact that someone could learn a flu fluently learn. Because she would have these conversations with the directors. I was like, how did you how are you doing this?

SPEAKER_03 35:28

And she also played it so natural. It was so interesting compared to like, you know, it was very the story in the chapters, like it was very like there's a presentation to it, but she, her character was like very natural and in it, not even, you know, not at all the um there was no self-awareness. It was just this character we're watching. And it was just gorgeous, gorgeous. Was it um shot on film?

SPEAKER_00 35:49

It was shot on two different types of film and sometimes digitally. Like in the very low light stuff, I think they went with digital just because it's almost impossible to see anything on some film.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

It was so beautiful. And was it filmed truly in Italy?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Yeah, in Rome, Sebadia, and Tuscan.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Oh, it was giving Italy. It was like fuck. It was so gorgeous and so interesting, and like whatever. I grew up on Long Island. My school had 3,000 kids in it, my high school. Like, I'm like gen pop, just general, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

I was a very big boys Catholic high school, though. I feel you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

It's like being in the army or something, like 100 or uh being a cow and being cattle. It was like so honestly, last night, like watching this movie, I was like, I I know art films. I can watch an art film and not only enjoy it, but interpret it. It was just, it was like inclusive for dum-dums.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, well, that's what I love about those it's both it's entertaining and it's funny, and it's like silly. And it is arty too. They take their time with their pace of like, no, we're gonna look at the clouds for a second and think about this woman's inner thoughts. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

And how honky is that guy, Alessandro? He's the one of the biggest stars of Italy now. Yeah. Um, he makes a very sexy Italian cowboy. And I played Buffalo Bill Cody in it, which is like this incredibly iconic role. I can't believe it just landed in my lap.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

But um It was so good. You were so good, and you were you were so as then I was um Carrie was saying you're a Buffalo Bill expert, and I was like, I am not. And I looked him up, I was like, holy shit, what a campy dude. Yeah, it was it was great.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

You were you're perfect, interesting too. And he has this reputation as this uh Western fabulist, and he was, he created these all these fake stories about the West because that's what he realized the audiences wanted to hear. But he was General Custer's scout, he was in the Pony Express, he his mother was a suffragette, his father was an abolitionist, his father was killed for making a speech against slavery. And then as a young 14-year-old, he was like, I have to help my mother survive. That's when he became a Pony Express rider.

SPEAKER_03 37:56

Like, so and also talk about mask and femme, a fabulist, you know, like so, like so femme, but then so mask. It was like, I was like, oh my god, very progressive in his way.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

So even though he created these, I would say, toxic myths about America and our cowboy past, he knew he was doing that. But the way he actually lived his life, he was raised by a suffragette and an abolitionist, you know. And when he and he, even though he tracked those Native Americans with Custer, he put those some of those same people in the show and gave them a life and became friends with their family. And but he became part of this larger, he created this giant family of show business, you know. Very American. He were telling these lies about what really happened. But he I loved the duality. I'm a very duality kind of person. I'm a Gemini, like I'm I'm an actor, you know, comedy, tragedy, comedy, tragedy. And Bill was very much like that. He had this, he knew the reality, but he chose to tell these crazy stories because he knew, like, I'm not gonna like change the audience's point of view about what really happened with the Buffalo or with the Native Americans. So, how do we make a buck here? You know, like what do they want to hear? And he paid Annie Oakley, you know, the sharpshooter Annie Oakley paid her the same as he paid the men. So he's like totally forward-thinking in that way.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

Crazy, crazy. Well, you were a perfect Buffalo Bill, and you could see that your enthusiasm about playing him, like in it. It was really buoyant, your performance, and the film was so cool. I felt like an artsy audience.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Yeah, talk about duality. The movie's called Heads or Tails, you know, like that's right. Testa o croce in Italian.

SPEAKER_03 39:33

Um, John Z. Riley, you are an American treasure. You are now a personal treasure in my experience. I'm so I'm so honored to um have had this time with you, and I thank you so much and tell you wife hello.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

I will do. Thank you, Ilana. It's a very nice chat with you here.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

Wowza, what a conversation. What an open-hearted, human, loving conversation that I just uh was fortunate enough to have with the amazing actor John C. Riley and a musician and so many more things. Um, so thank you, John C. Riley, for joining me today. Thanks, Carrie, for um making it happen. And you know what? This is a completely human-made production. This has been a starfix production. I want to thank my creative producers who are on the ground with me today, Annika Carlson and David Rucklin. I want to thank the It's Open Brain Trust, Kelsey Kylie, Madeline Kim, and Glenis Mahar. I want to thank the people who made this look and sound so beautiful. So feminine, may I, may I say. And and Mask in ways as well. But damn, is our set gorgeous? I want to thank Nicole Moppin. I want to thank Kevin Deming. I want to thank Lexa Krebs, and I want to thank Anna Carlson again. Um, I want to thank Tova Libowitz, who edits this show so beautifully with his expertise. And people go, that's a podcast. I say, girl, yep. Um then I say nope, video podcast. Anyway, um, I want to thank Ramo Ventura for his fucking sick branding and opening musical sting. I want to thank Don Hur, uh, the band with that has Ellie Glazer, Jimmy Hines, and Darren Hero for this musical outro. And who else? Um, I think that's it. Listen, if you like this show and you like you're picking up what we're putting down, like and subscribe, join the dang community. Um, because there's more brewing here. And uh this whole thing, we're in it together. So thanks so much. Have a great day. I love you. To the extent to which that makes sense and is appropriate and true. Bye.