-Our next guest is
an Emmy-nominated actor
you know from shows such as
"Friday Night Lights,"
"Fargo," and "Breaking Bad."
He stars in the new film "The Power of the Dog,"
which is in select theaters now and on Netflix December 1st.
Let's take a look.
-Forward, 2, 3.
Side, 2, hm.
[ Humming ]
-[ Crying ]
-What is it, George?
-Oh, just --
[ Sigh ]
I wanted to say how nice it is
not to be alone.
-Please welcome back to the show Jesse Plemons, everyone.
[ Cheering and applause ]
♪♪
[ Whistling ] ♪♪
♪♪
Welcome back! -Thank you.
It's a good segue from Samberg, that clip.
-The end of that clip, yeah. It had a real
Samberg vibe to it. -Yeah, it did. It did.
[ Laughter ] -I remember I heard the casting
came down to you or him.
-It did. It was very close.
[ Laughter ]
-Because he read that line like --
[ As Samberg ] It's nice to be with people!
[ Laughter ]
We were talking backstage. That's your fiancée,
Kirsten Dunst, in the clip. -That is, yeah.
-And you were saying it's like cheating to get to --
you guys get to work together.
-It doesn't seem fair, yeah. -No.
You got to be in New Zealand and work with your fiancée.
-Yeah. You know, I mean, that was the second time
we had worked together and it just, you know,
all of the sort of hard work is already done for it.
You just kind of have to figure out how to, you know,
deal with each other and the specific characters and --
-It's really nice. -Yeah.
-And then, outside of working together,
you guys added to your family.
You had a baby a few -- What, seven months old, now?
-Yeah, a seven-month-old baby that we decided, "Why not?
Let's have a pandemic baby." -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] You get to spend time together.
-Yeah. -And you got your older one.
Is Ennis the older one?
-Ennis is the older one. He's three and a half.
Did you experience any sort of --
any problems with the older child dealing with the new?
-There was one time where, because we had a two-year gap
where the two-year-old walked across the room
and the baby was on the floor
and he just fully stepped on top of it.
[ Laughter ] -Oh, wow.
-And like with a big --
And then, he said it was an accident,
but it was on like the Nest Cam, you know, like the --
[ Laughter ] and you he just had the most
[bleep]-eating grin, like -- -Oh, wow.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-Accidentally. -Did you have anything?
-Well, we kept waiting for the other shoe to drop
because you hear these terrible stories
of the older kid, you know, reacting really awfully.
And, one night, we were in our room
and our kid runs in
and we have the bassinet next to our bed
and he just says, "I'm going to pee on the floor."
[ Laughter ] We're like, "No, no, no, no.
You can't pee on the floor." He's like --
And I don't think he really had to pee that bad.
It was just to prove a point and mark his territory.
[ Laughter ]
And, sure enough, he did,
as we were pleading with him not to.
[ Laughter ]
And that was kind of it.
It was like, once he had done that...
-Wow! -...he was like,
"Alright, my work is done."
[ Laughter ]
You get it.
-At seven months, I feel like, at this point,
there's a personality, right?
Like what do you call the baby?
[ Laughter ]
-We call him Big Kahuna.
[ Laughter ] -Big Kahuna?
-Big Kahuna.
It's very fitting, on many levels.
He's in the 96th percentile in weight, so there's that.
But he also just has a very laid-back, easygoing vibe.
He's kind of like a good old boy already
in like a seven-month-old package, yeah.
[ Laughter ] -The Big Kahuna?
I love the Big Kahuna.
The first time you were here -- speaking of family --
your grandmother was in the audience.
-Yes. -And, the next time,
it was weird because I got to meet her, which was lovely,
and then, the next time you came,
you said she sent a big Texas howdy,
which was very sweet.
Did we hear from her?
-We did hear from her. -Okay.
-And she wanted me to make sure
that I relayed this message to you.
-Okay.
-"Mr. Meyers..."
-Very nice of her to use.
[ Laughter ] -She's much more formal in text
than she is when she's just talking.
-Right. -She usually calls you old Seth.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-"Mr. Meyers, just a big Texas hello from Jesse's granny
and to wish you and your family
a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving," so.
[ Audience awws ] I mean, she's just A1.
-Yeah. -I got no complaints
about her at all.
Consistently,
of all my guests on the show,
she's my favorite grandma. -She's the best granny, yeah.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah. -Yeah.
-Do you see her for Thanksgiving?
-Pretty much most holidays when we're in Texas.
We alternate now because of, you know.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-And so do you have big Thanksgiving plans?
-We do. Yeah, we've got the whole --
We've got the whole family,
Kirsten's family coming into Austin
and then, for Christmas, we'll do it all again, yeah.
-That's great.
This is a beautiful film.
Benedict Cumberbatch was here, talking about it
and we've talked in the past.
You're a lovely person in real life.
You've played some pretty good sociopaths over the years.
[ Laughter ] -Thank you. -Which I think speaks
to your acting style, that, you know,
I meet you and there's an actual light
in your eyes, as opposed to some [ Laughter ]
of the people you've played. -I know how to turn it off.
[ Laughter ] -You know how to turn it off?
You are the nicer of the two brothers in this film.
Did you enjoy being on the other side of it?
-It was so nice.
It was like a vacation from playing socio--
playing, you know, the heavy for a while.
And, yeah, just to get to work with Benedict as well
and to see him do something that he'd never done before.
-He told us that he didn't --
that Jane Campion, the director of this film,
asked him not to shower, so that you could all know
what somebody like that would smell like.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, that was one of the requests.
And, you know, I never really --
I can't say that I noticed, but we did do some --
I think we discussed earlier we did some sort of
unorthodox rehearsals,
where like the first thing that we did together was
we waltzed to this Elliott Smith song.
Like brothers do, you know?
[ Laughter ]
And that was sort of her way of getting us very familiar
with each other's center, physicality or --
[ Laughter ] -I love it. -And, you know.
-It worked. -I guess it worked.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-The whole time you're watching the film, you're like,
"Those guys know what each other smells like."
[ Laughter ]
Doing a Western like this,
were Westerns something you were into
and you hope to pass that down to your boys?
-I do. I do hope so. I grew up watching
a film called "Lonesome Dove." -With Tommy Lee Jones.
The best. -Tommy Lee Jones.
-Have you seen it? -It's the best, yeah.
-Okay.
I mean, I did try to show my son the film,
but it is six hours long.
-It's six hours long and it's super brutal.
-It's super brutal. My parents thought it was okay
for me to start watching that at like one year old,
[ Laughter ] so I guess I was like,
"Well, if it's good enough for me..."
-You waited 'til he was three and a half.
-Yeah. He wasn't into it.
He wasn't into "Lonesome Dove." -Yeah.
-It does seem like a little advanced
for three and a half, yeah.
[ Laughter ] -Not for me, but.
I just came out -- -You turned out fine.
-Yeah, right? -Yeah. Well, tell him
to toughen up. You know who's going to like it?
The Big Kahuna. -Big Kahuna's going to love it. [ Laughter ]
-Hey, congratulations on everything.
It's so nice to see you. -Thank you so much.
-Thank you so much for making time for us.
[ Cheering and applause ] Jesse Plemons.
"The Power of the Dog" is out in select theaters now
and available on Netflix December 1st.