WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

Warren Hutcherson and Marc were getting their starts in standup around the same time. Then, as Marc recalls it, Warren was suddenly a television writer and wasn't on the standup scene anymore. Warren explains how his college-age writing was responsible for his somewhat accidental entry into comedy, which led to him running the network television gauntlet, navigating the conventions and biases of H...

Steve Jordan is considered one of the greatest rock and roll drummers of all time. He joins Marc in the garage to talk about his years playing in the house bands for David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, which included being part of The Blues Brothers' band. Steve also shares stories of his collaborations with Neil Young, Don Henley, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones,...

Actor Jay Baruchel takes the trip down from Canada to talk with Marc about life, acting and the Great White North. Jay explains what it was like being raised in a family that was righteously engaged in politics while also beset by criminal activity and alcoholism. He also tells Marc why it's important to him to see Canadian culture reflected in film, which is one of the reasons he wrote and direct...

Marc gets the full story of how Vincent Furnier became Alice Cooper and took rock & roll into dark and unexpected territory. Alice tells Marc about the early formation of his band, how his return to Christianity helped him confront his alcoholism, and how he's remained sober for nearly 40 years. Along the way, he inspired, and was inspired by, the likes of John Lennon, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Frank Si...

First things first: Brent Weinbach and Marc need to have a good conversation about crying. Once that's out of the way, the two of them figure out how Brent's performance-based comedy, filled with multiple characters and flights of absurdity, is connected to his pursuit of becoming a jazz musician as a teenager. It also has something to do with why Brent thinks Chico is the best Marx Brother. Also,...

To prepare for this conversation, Marc watched one of Jennifer Jason Leigh's earliest films, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, as well as her most recent, the crime thriller Good Time. The details of what happened in between help explain why Jennifer is one of our best actors, so much so that Marc even asks her for a few acting pointers, which Jennifer is happy to provide. Hosted on Acast. See acast.c...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest basketball players ever, but he's happy if you know him as a writer, a cultural critic, an activist, a chronicler of African-American history, an actor, an ambassador, and a coin collector. Kareem and Marc talk about all those things and how life in 2017 America is similar to life when Kareem was a young man. Plus, therapist Phil Stutz returns to the gara...

Canadian comic Mike MacDonald survived four decades in comedy, drug abuse, Sam Kinison, chronic illness, psych wards, and a liver transplant to make it to the garage. Mike takes Marc through his early days doing comedy in Canadian punk rock clubs up to his return to the road after recovering from a major organ transplant. Also, writer Jon Ronson returns, this time to talk about porn, which he expl...

Keith and Kenny Lucas are identical twins and Marc is freaking out at how similar they are. Well, freaking a little bit anyway, but only at first because once the three of them get talking it's hard not to be taken with the Lucas Brothers' story. They talk about their childhoods, their philosophy-based education, their attempt to go into law, culminating with a mere two-and-a-half years in which t...

Rory Scovel is from the South, he was born into a legacy of postal workers, and one of his first jobs was in production at a local TV station. It's all great background material for a comedy career, which is probably why Rory and Marc have such a thorough conversation about doing the job of comedy, from the grind of working on the road to the art of being a warm-up comic to the craft of making an...

Former Vice President Al Gore has been thinking about change his whole life, whether it was the way the changing media shaped our politics or the way a changing climate altered the way we live on this planet. He talks with Marc about our current political atmosphere, the Trump administration, his regrets about the 2000 election, the progress he sees on climate issues, and the continuing fight for...

David Alan Grier studied to become a serious actor at Yale School of Drama, which actually came in handy when he got cast on one of the funniest shows of all time, In Living Color. David talks with Marc about his varied career on stage, screen and in the comedy clubs. Plus, comedian Joe Mande takes a break from Twitter to stop by the garage and talk about how he staged an award show for his new st...

Marc believes - and many agree with him - that Randy Newman is an American genius. One person who's not so sure is Randy himself who, after half a century as a recording artist, 13 solo albums, 23 soundtracks, six Grammys, two Oscars and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, tells Marc he still doesn't think he's done enough. They talk about Randy's early albums, his struggles with songwr...

David Remnick is a seasoned journalist, an accomplished writer and a proud amateur guitar player. But he's also the gatekeeper of an American institution as editor of The New Yorker. Marc and David talk about the versatility of The New Yorker's content, from poetry to fiction to investigative reporting and more, and how the current political and cultural climates demand our engagement with all asp...

With indelible roles in shows like The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, and Horace and Pete, a lot of people feel like they know Edie Falco very well, even though they only know her characters. Edie helps Marc dispel some of these preconceived notions by discussing her early struggles as an aspiring actor, why she wanted to be a mother, who intimidates her when she's on set, and how she dealt with a major...

Blues legends Keb' Mo' and Taj Mahal are distinctly different individuals. One grew up in Compton, California, the other grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. One was raised on Caribbean music, the other got schooled in the Southern Blues. One is quiet and contemplative, the other is an excitable storyteller. But as they tell Marc about their separate journeys, it actually makes sense that they w...

Give a listen to how the sausage of television gets made as Marc talks with the creative team behind the show GLOW. First, hear about the process of scripting a season of television as a group from the show's writers, Rachel Shukert, Nick Jones and Sascha Rothschild. Then Marc speaks with the creators and showrunners Carly Mensch and Liz Flahive who had to bring all the parts together and still ma...

Filmmaker Jeff Baena was always into movies that didn't fit into easy categories. He tells Marc about having his mind blown at an early age thanks to directors like Kubrick and Fellini, which helps explain how Jeff could wind up writing a screenplay like I Heart Huckabees and directing a twisted Middle Ages comedy like The Little Hours. Also, Marc gets his friend and television foil Dave Anthony t...

It's a tag team match with two of Marc's GLOW colleagues. First, Chavo Guerrero Jr. stops by to tell Marc what it's like to be part of a wrestling dynasty and how he put his lifetime of experience to use as the behind-the-scenes trainer on GLOW. Then Kia Stevens talks about going from social work to wrestling stardom and how she was able to play the character of Tamee, aka Welfare Queen, by drawin...

Jason Mantzoukas is a great improvisational comedian, which you would know from seeing him in shows like The League, on podcasts like How Did This Get Made? and in movies like The House. As he explains to Marc, it was only after undertaking a global musical quest, having mystical experiences in foreign lands and being jailed in Morocco that Jason realized his true calling was comedy, which is stil...

Even when she was in school, Jenji Kohan didn't like being told what she couldn't do. So it makes sense that after she was told there was no chance she'd ever get on a TV writing staff, Jenji would make the hit shows Weeds, Orange is the New Black and now GLOW. Jenji tells Marc about her early influences, her string of unsatisfying writing jobs, and the inspiration she drew from working with Trace...

Despite a surname that is practically synonymous with modern American cinema, Sofia Coppola didn't want to be a film director. She tells Marc about her early career ambitions and how they inevitably led her into the family business. The two of them also discuss Sofia's films, including The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, and her remake of a gritty 1970s Clint Eastwood movie...

Marc sits down with his coworkers Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin to take stock of the time they spent shooting the first season of the new Netflix series GLOW and to learn a bit more about each other now that they're not in character anymore. They also discuss their newfound appreciation of wrestling, Alison's realistic fear that she wasn't going to get the part, and the reason Marc was intimidated...

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon are married. They also wrote the movie The Big Sick, which is based on their lives and in which Kumail plays himself. Marc also wrote an episode of television that was based on Kumail, only Kumail did not play himself. The three of them talk about the circumstances surrounding that situation and about the making of the movie. Plus, comedian Jim Florentine stops by...

When Marc crossed paths with writer Ariel Leve back in the '90s, she was working at MTV and on the verge of making a splash as a print journalist. Ariel didn't know she would soon uncover the trauma inflicted by her gaslighting mother. As Ariel tells Marc, she would have to decide with whether telling the truth was a betrayal. Also on the show, in what was probably a mistake, Wheeler Walker, Jr. e...