-This is a zombie-apocalypse movie
with a fantastic cast. -Yeah.
-Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton,
Chloe Sevigny, yourself.
Jim Jarmusch directed it.
This is not a man who is known for his zombie films.
-No, he's not. -Yeah.
-By the way, that clip
was just from footage of my house upstate.
-Yeah. -I don't know how you got that.
That's me every morning. -I'm so sorry.
They told us that was from the movie, but that's just --
that's actual documentary-film footage of you...
-Yes. -...and your farm.
Well, I feel terrible. We have violated your privacy,
and I apologize. -That's okay.
But you -- you do play a farmer. -Yes.
-And you sort of -- I guess, as that clip tells us,
you might realize something's wrong
'cause your animals go missing.
-Something's going on in the town.
-Yeah. -It's very troubling, yes.
-There's a lot of prosthetic,
as you would expect from a zombie film.
Did you enjoy that part of the job?
-No. -Yeah.
[ Light laughter ]
-Yeah, I mean, everybody's nice,
you know, but it takes a long time...
-Yeah. -...to put the makeup on.
And then you look like a zombie,
and nobody wants to talk to you, really.
-Did you feel same way about your cast members
who were the zombies? -Yeah.
Well, Chloe Sevigny is in the film,
and I hadn't seen her in a long time,
and we were catching up. But -- And I --
You know, having a serious conversation,
but I couldn't look her in the eye
'cause, literally, her eye was, like, falling out of her head.
[ Laughter ]
Had to stop talking. -Yeah, it's very hard to --
Somebody you haven't seen in 10 years and you have to say,
"You look great..." -Yeah, right.
-"...you haven't aged a day," with like a dead, lolling eye.
Bill Murray's one of your co-stars.
Have you work together before? -Never.
-But you did -- You auditioned for him.
-I did. You know, he co-directed a film,
"Quick Change." -Yeah, fantastic film.
-And I auditioned for it. I didn't get the part.
But he told me when I came in that --
He said, "We looked at your picture,
and you sort of look like a psycho."
[ Laughter ]
"And you come in here, and you really do look like a psycho."
[ Laughter ]
"It's just most people don't look like their pictures."
-That's so nice. -I said, "Thank you."
-But this is true.
In your early days, you had two head shots.
-I did, yeah. -And so you would decide,
based on the role, whether to send out the psycho one.
-Well, I didn't think I looked like a psycho.
-Oh, I'm sorry. [ Laughter ]
Well, here -- This is obviously your --
-Yeah. That's like, you know, like...the boy next door.
-Boy next door. -You know.
-And this is the guy who maybe
has some trouble with the boy next door.
-Yeah. -I mean, that's --
[ Laughter and applause ]
I mean, that's the same guy but very different parts.
-But here's the weird thing.
That's how I really preferred to look.
Like, I -- It was the '80s, you know,
so, like, a lot of hair gel. -A lot of hair gel.
-That's how I walked around. Yeah.
-You found your first -- This is your first --
what would you say? -- your acting résumé?
Is that...? -Yeah.
-And not a lot going on here. -No, it's very slight.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-Is it true that you --
'Cause you did some stand-up comedy.
-I did. -But in your early days,
you actually thought there was a chance --
Ventriloquism was a thing you took.
-You know, when I was a kid,
you know, I wanted to be in show business.
-Yeah. -You know, I didn't necessarily
know, like, how to be an actor, but I figured,
you gotta know a lot of stuff.
So I learned how to juggle.
I learned how to ride a unicycle.
[ Light laughter ]
And then, I -- for a little while,
I thought, "Ventriloquism -- that's my ticket."
-And then, did you realize that it was the '80s
and none of those skills actually mattered anymore?
[ Laughter ]
-I was so disappointed. -Yeah.
-Years of training.
-But then, the good news was, you know, you thought,
oh, you wasted all that time learning how to do that stuff,"
and in the end, they were like, "You know what's good, though?
You look a little bit like a psycho."
[ Laughter ] -Yes.
-"We can use that."
So, you were doing stand-up, and at the same
that you were doing stand-up and you were acting,
you were also a fireman. -I was.
-And not like a volunteer fireman.
You were an actual fireman.
-Yeah, at Engine 55 in Manhattan, and I did that --
[ Cheers and applause ] Thank you.
I kind of kept it under wraps.
I mean, I had done a little bit of stand-up,
and then I got called for the job,
so I stopped doing stand-up, and I just so --
And I was, like, the quietest guy in the firehouse
'cause you didn't want to give these guys
any ammunition to make fun of you.
-Sure. -Yeah.
So, it was like -- So you would never say, like,
with everybody, "Did anybody else here ride a unicycle?"
You wouldn't -- yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-And there was only one other -- there was another firefighter
that was an actor who worked in another firehouse.
His name was Dean Tulipane, and -- and they made fun of him.
Like -- Like, night and day. You know?
And so I definitely wasn't gonna tell anybody that I --
And then, I met him. And because I lived
in the East Village, he knew something was up.
He said, "What are you -- You must be something.
A musician? Are you an actor?"
And I admitted that I was an actor,
or that I wanted to be an actor.
And then, so the cat was out of the bag.
-And then they found out. -And they tortured me.
-And they tortured you. [ Light laughter ]
But you met -- Is it true you met Jim Jarmusch,
the director of this film, as a stand-up?
-Well, yes. I was doing --
Well, not stand-up.
I had a partner, Mark Boone Jr., and we used to write --
-Who's a great actor. -He's a wonderful actor.
And we used to write and perform our own material.
And we used to do this show.
There was a comedian called Rockets Redglare.
-Okay. -Did you ever know him?
-No. Rockets -- His name was Rockets Redglare?
-Rockets Redglare. -Okay.
-And he used to do -- -Got to go into comedy
with a name like that. I mean...
[ Laughter ]
-And he had a show called
"Rockets Redglare's Taxi's Cabaret."
And Boone and I would perform in that,
and Jim used to see us in that, and that's how he cast me
in one of the early films, "Mystery Train."
-Yeah. -And -- And then,
right after "Mystery Train," the day we wrapped --
the next day, we filmed a little short
that he used for "Coffee and Cigarettes"
years later.
But I hadn't worked with him in 30 years.
-That's fantastic. -Yeah.
-It's a great film.
It's great to see you guys collaborate again.
It's always such a pleasure to have you here and see you.
-Thank you, so much. -Thank you, so much.