-You mentioned your son.
We've talked about, in the past,
you working with your daughter, who is also an actor.
You have two other kids.
How do they -- Do they respond well to your work?
I know their ages kind of run the gamut,
but do they like watching you on screen?
-You know, I don't know what other people's experiences are,
but mine is that my kids really don't care
about my professional life at all.
They're not interested.
Me being in a Marvel movie, to them,
simply ruins a Marvel movie. -Got it.
-They're very excited about all Marvel movies except this one.
I mean, you know, they're glad I might get a couple
free T-shirts out of it,
but that's as far as the fun meter goes.
-I mean, you have a nice working relationship with your wife.
You guys, you know, you produce things together.
Does that matter at all?
Do they think that because Mom and Dad do something together
that it makes show business worse or better, do you think?
-I think better. -Yeah.
-I think there's a different kind of --
there's a certain kind of parenting you do
by teaching them to play baseball,
teaching them to drive, playing with them and all of that,
and there's another kind of parenting you do via leadership
and showing your kids that you care about each other
and you care about each other's work and seeing Mom
working on something that she's incredibly passionate about.
I mean, how can you tell your kids to follow their dreams
if you don't follow yours, right?
It's hollow words.
And I think seeing the love
we have for each other and [bleep] --
You know, my great passion in my life has been my work.
You know, I love acting,
and for me not to be able to share that with my wife is hard.
And her getting into producing, it's this whole new thing for me
because it's the first time that there's --
it sounds a little corny, but there's love there.
You know, when we did "The Good Lord Bird" together
or "Blaze," some of the other things we have done,
they're all rooted deeply in things that we as a family
care about and things that we want to put forward.
And so the kids feel that.
They feel that we're not...
you know, we're not just trying to make a buck.
You know, we do obviously want to pay our bills
and everything like that, but we also want to achieve
whatever our little dreams are, you know?
And I think -- I don't know what they would say,
but I hope that when they're grown,
it'll have some kind of impact to watch us working together,
treating each other with respect,
trying to help each other fulfill our dreams.
I mean, I know it sounds so corny when you say it out loud,
but it works for us or at least it has up until this minute.
Maybe after this interview, it'll go badly.
-You talk about the importance of, you know,
following your dreams and the fact that you started this
at a young age, and obviously, you had a passion for it.
Were your parents supportive early on when you basically
said to them, "This is the path I want to take"?
-Well, nobody in my family had ever been in the arts,
so it seemed a completely foreign idea.
You know, lots of kids say they want to be actors.
I think that my father was absolutely petrified
that I would just be broke, I mean,
or turn into some bohemian madman,
which you did call me David Koresh when it started.
[ Laughter ] So I don't know.
Maybe my father's dreams --
I mean, his nightmares were justified.
They instilled in me that if I was going to do it,
I had to take it incredibly seriously,
and that was of value to me.
Or maybe their concern about it forced me into a situation
of trying to prove it was a worthwhile profession.
The reasons why I act now
are different than when I acted as a kid.
When I was a kid, I do think it was about, you know,
those crass things, wanting people to like you,
wanting to be noticed, wanting to be different.
And as you get older, you start to see what can be accomplished
through the arts and you start to believe in it,
and so I think they're for it.
Now, my father has always --
he was initially very worried for me, and since then,
he's been wildly supportive,
and my mother is just always negative, you know.
I mean, that's just her.
You know, basically I have to -- she's the first one to tell me
I'm not quite as good as I want to be.
[ Laughter ]
-Does she do this on sort of a project-by-project level?
Is it, you know, after she watches something like
"Good Lord Bird," is she like, "Here's my thoughts on this"?
-Yeah, she watched "The Good Lord Bird"
and she's like, "You know, I really like John Brown,
but I don't think you're doing him justice.
I mean, I think you're missing an essential intelligence level
that he definitely -- Have you read his letters?"
I'm like, "Mom, I played the guy for a year!
I read his letters!" Like, "Give me a break."
And I can't make her happy.
-The really heartbreaking thing about that is
giving a note on something that's already done.
Like, "I just feel like you're almost there."
[ Laughter ]
-You know what my mother did to me the other day?
Sent me something really bad on the Internet about me
with the headline "please ignore this."
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, that's really good. -I mean, like --
-But your dad from the beginning, because I will say
I think -- I don't want to, like, stereotype,
but certainly my experience has been my dad is sort of
the harder judge and my mom is the one who sort of
hand-holds the whole way, and again, it's a great team
because I feel like you do want some of both,
but your dad has always been just there for it?
-They inverted. No.
In the beginning, my father was very skeptical.
I mean, incredibly skeptical.
I mean, I think he said to me, "What do you --
You think you're Clint Eastwood?"
I was like, "Dad, I don't have to be Clint Eastwood."
I mean, it's like saying, like, "I want to play basketball,
I want to be Michael Jordan."
I'm not saying I'm going to be Clint Eastwood.
I'm just saying I want to do this with my life.
Once he observed my passion and my enthusiasm --
I just think he was worried
I wasn't going to be able to pay my bills.
-What was the first pay-my-bills job where they thought,
"Okay, enough of these have happened, he's gonna be okay"?
-Well, for my father,
it wasn't until I was in a successful Western.
I mean, "Magnificent Seven" -- I was 44 before my dad was like,
"Alright, alright, you're in 'Mag Seven.'
Alright, that was a good movie.
I saw that. I think you're working."
And my mother, strangely -- they really were the invert.
When I was younger, she was super supportive of the idea.
-Yeah. -Of going into the arts.
She was this very -- You know, when I first tried writing,
she'd be like, "You're no Chekhov, you know?
I mean, it's okay, but just so you know,
it's not as good as it could be."
I mean, that's -- I think she thinks she's giving me drive.
And I don't know if that's accurate.
-Well, I want to say this as your friend.
I think you have both outpaced Chekhov and Clint Eastwood.
-Whoo!
What about David Koresh though? What about Koresh?
-I'm gonna wait until I see "Moon Knight."
-Okay, okay, okay, okay. [ Laughter ]
-Alright, come back soon, my friend.
It's always great to see you.
"Meadowlark" is available now.