Off Camera with Sam Jones

Liz Phair introduced herself to the music industry in the 1990s with her bold first record Exile in Guyville. Rock and roll was traditionally dominated by men, but Liz forged her own path to success despite the loneliness it entailed. She used her art to express her feelings about sexuality, gender, and politics. As she says, “I had a sense that if I wanted to make my artistic dreams comes true, I was going to be on my own. I knew I would be going against the grain.”To this day, Liz unapologetically speaks her mind, and with the recent release of her memoir Horror Stories, we get a glimpse of the human being behind the art and the experiences that shaped her. Her remedy for the hopelessness she felt after the 2016 election was to write a brutally honest account of her life. “I decided to put something out that was as true as I could make it. I could expose myself and make myself truly vulnerable in order to plant a flag for honesty.”Liz joins Off Camera to talk about rebelling against the “beautiful lie” that was her suburban upbringing, her quest to untangle who she actually is versus the person she is perceived to be, and why getting up on stage never gets any easier.

Well folks, you are in for a treat this week, especially if you are a skateboarder. Mike McGill and Steve Caballero were two of the founding members of the most famous skateboard team in history, the Bones Brigade, founded by legendary skater Stacy Peralta, who had a knack for scouting young talent. As a kid growing up in Fullerton, California, skateboarding was my passion, and I witnessed both of these guys change the sport I loved from a street corner pursuit to a worldwide phenomenon that has influenced popular culture, changed our athletic landscape, and is now, unbelievably, an Olympic Sport.Mike and Steve grew up on opposite coasts, but their shared love of skating (and a call from Stacy) brought them together. Now, Mike and Steve are in their 50s, and little has changed—they’re still great friends, they still skate together, and they’re still pushing each other to be better.The Bones Brigade was a make-shift family—a group of teenaged boys with Stacy as the father figure at the helm. Under Stacy’s mentorship, Mike and Steve turned pro at 15 years old, which meant traveling, competing in contests, and making videos. Juggling school and the demands of the sport was hard for both of them. Steve’s grades dipped, and Mike’s principal called his parents to reprimand him for missing too much class. But they knew what they wanted to do, and they were already earning a living. A good living.When The Bones Brigade hit their peak in the early '90s Mike and Steve were earning way more money than their parents, and traveling the world like rock stars. It gave them a perspective that few kids get, and it also solidified their identities forever, which caused both growing pains and afforded them a life of doing what they love to do.Mike and Steve’s other passion is Motocross, so you can understand why I like these guys. We get together most Mondays to ride dirt bikes at various motocross tracks around California, and as I result I have been afforded a unique perspective on how they approach fear, injury, aging, and passion. We get deep into those topics, and I come away with a new respect for them and a renewed desire to throw caution to the wind in pursuit of a life well lived.Mike and Steve join Off Camera to talk about accepting that suffering is part of the journey, the pressure that comes with creating new tricks, and how they hazed Tony Hawk when he joined the Bones Brigade. All I can say is, don’t ever accept gum from Mike and Steve. You don’t know where it’s been.

I’m really happy to have Jenny Slate back again. She’s smart, funny, and charming, and she’s refreshingly honest about her struggles as an artist and human being. Every time I find myself in conversation with her, I feel inspired and joyful. She’s just released a Netflix special called Stage Fright, which is part standup, part documentary, part confessional, and wholly original. And she’s also released a new memoir called Little Weirds, which is probably the most esoteric and private book to ever land on The New York Times bestseller list. Bottom line, Jenny is an unapologetically human artist, and she is at the height of her powers. Jenny had to do some soul-searching over the past few years. Divorce, the public spotlight, and emotional turmoil were inhibiting her creativity, and as she depicts in her memoir, she had to work through some of that “gloop.” Writing Little Weirds led to a maturity and self-assuredness that helped her reach not only new creative heights, but also to find peace and happiness within herself. She inhabits an interesting space between creating entertainment and soul-searching. As Jenny says, “I don’t think that there will be a world in which I don’t try to be funny and add levity to reality, but the most important thing for me as an artist and the only constant is, ‘Openness until death.’ Stay open until you’re terminal.” Jenny joins Off Camera to talk about losing her creative spirit in the woods of New England, freaking out after she bombed the Stage Fright rehearsal, and the psychological and creative benefits of dressing monochromatically for a couple weeks. HOME

The first time Tracy Letts participated in a community theater play, he knew he found something special. At school, Tracy was shy and had a hard time connecting with his peers, so when he discovered the comradery surrounding the theater, he finally felt embraced by a community. His talent for acting came later, when his father, also an actor, taught him the power of speaking simply rather than proclaiming. As Tracy says, “I went onstage, and I said my lines simply and truthfully. It was my first real acting lesson. Speaking truthfully in a room has great impact—everyone can feel it. After that, I was hooked.”After graduating from high school, Tracy was eager to start his life and decided against going to college. He landed in Chicago, which had a rich and booming theater scene. When he wasn’t auditioning, he filled his free time writing, a passion of his ever since he was young. Killer Joe, a play about a brutal and murderous family in Texas, was Tracy’s first attempt, and it became a massive success.In the years since, Tracy has continued to write and act. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his play August: Osage County, based on his own family, and in addition to his acting work on stage, he’s been in a number of projects on TV and in film, such as Homeland, Lady Bird, and most recently, Ford v Ferrari. There’s an empathy that suffuses all of Tracy’s work, and it all stems from his desire to achieve self-acceptance. As he says, “It’s hard to give yourself a break, isn’t it? You can’t just decide to do it. It’s not an act of will. It takes actual work, whether that means getting sober, getting into therapy, writing or acting in plays, or paying attention and really listening to other people.”Tracy joins Off Camera to talk about working with his father in August: Osage County, how theater provokes vulnerability, and why his career trajectory basically comes down to chasing a girl.

Josh Gad was drawn to acting ever since he took the stage as The Simcha Machine in Beth Shalom Academy’s kindergarten play. Onstage, Josh felt euphoria, but at home, he struggled with his parents’ divorce. Luckily, he found an escape through watching and performing in theater. Josh vividly remembers the first time he saw a professional play, sitting in the nosebleeds, and watching breathlessly. “What finally took me over the edge was going to New York City and seeing Topol in Fiddler on the Roof. I was sold. Sold. ‘I’ve got to do this.’”In addition to his dream of performing, Josh had an innate talent for making people laugh. Humor was how eased his mother’s pain after divorce, and it also helped him diffuse social tension. Josh explains, “One time a kid called me fat in front of a group of people, and instead of kowtowing, I started reciting a monologue from My Cousin Vinny to the point where the guy was like, ‘What is happening right now?’ Everybody was laughing at him, and I turned it into an opportunity to take the weapon out of his hands and make it my own.”For college, Josh went to conservatory at Carnegie Mellon, but getting work after graduation wasn’t easy. The cycle of auditioning and rejection was depressing, especially when his agents sent him on auditions against the likes of Nick Lachey. “Had my agents even seen my headshot?” Josh jokes. After a couple of years, he almost quit, but he finally got his big break as the lead in the Broadway show The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee. In the years since, Josh has done work in a wide range of projects onstage and onscreen, including The Daily Show, Book of Mormon, The Comedians, Frozen, and more.Josh joins Off Camera to talk about the way voice acting taps into his childhood, the worst night he’s ever had on stage, and missing his calling as an opera singer.

When Swedish born Noomi Rapace booked the lead in the original film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it changed her life, both personally and professionally. It was a role she deeply related to, and her striking performance as the hard-edged, androgynous Lisbeth Salander garnered international praise and attention. That success brought her from Sweden to Hollywood, where she brought her intensity and fragility to Prometheus, What Happened to Monday?, Bright, and many more. She’s now in the new season of Amazon’s Jack Ryan, opposite John Krasinski.The honesty and spontaneity in Noomi’s performances can be traced all the way back to her childhood. Growing up, Noomi always felt different, especially compared to her reserved, Scandinavian family. As she says, “My heart was on fire. I had too much energy. I was too loud. My temperature was just different.”  Noomi fell in love with the profession at age seven as an extra in an Icelandic Viking film, and has pretty much not stopped working since. Seeking freedom and independence, she left home as a teenager. Though not educated, her ability to read people was her survival mechanism, and also served her very well as an actress. When she describes her philosophy of the craft, it’s clear why: “Acting is total freedom. Acting is paradise. Everything is allowed, and there are no rights and wrongs.”Noomi joins Off Camera to talk about losing herself in her characters, why vanity is the enemy of good acting, and about her rebellious and wild years as a “punk rock girl,” including the time she stubbornly tried to swim all the way from Denmark to Sweden.

When Lance Reddick was growing up, he was a shy and introverted kid. He was one of a handful of African-Americans at his school, so he never felt like he fit in, and his introverted nature made him an easy target for bullies. In the face of these struggles, Lance had to confront his own self-perception at an early age. As he says, “In order to escape the trap of trying to fit into places where people tried to define me or how they defined being black, I had to find a sense of myself that was independent of that.” That’s where the arts came in.During his college years, Lance discovered that he had a talent for music and acting. “When I was onstage and it was going well, I felt powerful, which was something I wasn’t used to feeling in front of a bunch of people.” Despite his natural talent for acting, he took a detour to pursue his first love—music. When that didn’t pan out, he found his way back to theater, got into Yale’s drama school, and the rest is history.His experience at Yale changed his life and his approach to the craft, and he’s been working as an actor ever since in shows like The Wire, Oz, Fringe, and most recently, in Amazon’s Bosch and Comedy Central’s Corporate.Lance joins Off Camera to talk about his most terrifying moment on stage, confronting systemic racism in the industry, and the time he serenaded his crush, only to get turned down in humiliating fashion.

For the past 25 years, Edward Norton has established himself as one of the greatest actors in his generation. His legacy includes roles in films like Primal Fear, American History X, Fight Club, and Birdman to name a few, and he’s the type of artist who constantly seeks to challenge himself. Take his new film Motherless Brooklyn, which he wrote, directed, and stars in. The noir-esque film is an incredible achievement for Edward, and it’s a direct product of all of his years of hard work and experience in the industry.For Edward, being an artist is more of a compulsion than a mere desire. As he says, “Most of us are one or two degrees away from obsession tipping over into a true condition and affliction. That’s how I feel about acting and writing.” Luckily, Edward has a creative place to put that obsession, and that creativity was inspired by the work of musicians like Bob Dylan and David Bowie when Edward was a teenager. The resounding message was: “The freaks are who you want to hang with.” So, Edward sought to find his own tribe of like-minded, creative people. It’s through that band of people that Edward got his first big role, and it also helped him fund and cast Motherless Brooklyn. As he says, “If I’ve got any collateral via what I’ve done, why wouldn’t I try to do something else? Why wouldn’t I try to swing for a story that I think I understand and say something?”Edward joins Off Camera to talk about identifying with his underdog character in Motherless Brooklyn, learning to put problems in perspective after his mother passed away, and why he has a hard time trusting anyone who actually enjoyed high school.

Jeff Bridges is back again, and this time, the legendary multi-hyphenate is joining me because he’s just released a new photography book titled Jeff Bridges: Pictures, Volume Two. Composed of behind-the-scenes photos taken throughout his career, the book is a wonderful representation of the magic and mystery of filmmaking.Despite so many years of experience, Jeff approaches every new artistic project with a "beginner’s mind." Whether he’s prepping for a new role, writing songs, painting, or taking photos, getting down to work is how Jeff staves off his self-critic. “We’re often looking for passion and where to find it, but it doesn’t come out of nowhere—passion is the fire you get when you rub sticks together.” It’s this passion that drew me to Jeff many years ago, and it’s why I’m excited to see what he’ll work on next.Jeff joins Off Camera to talk about his fear of making decisions, what he’s learned after 42 years of marriage, and why you better have a safe word or you might end up in the hospital.

Jake Johnson’s made a career out of acting next to some of the top names in the business, and that’s exactly how he likes it. From his vantage point, he’s got the best seat in the house, watching people like Zooey Deschanel (New Girl), Tom Cruise (The Mummy), and Cobie Smulders (Stumptown) do their thing. All the while, he’s living out a dream that started when he was a kid, watching shows like Cheers and Roseanne and desperately wanting to be in them.Jake and his two siblings were brought up by their mother in a Chicago suburb. He wasn’t a great student, but he lit up when he discovered writing and acting in high school. “Back then, I was in a very tricky emotional place, but writing plays, I had total control, and I loved it.” Combine that with the praise he received from performing in the school sketch show, and he knew he found his thing.Now, Jake’s 41 and still doing it, and his favorite part of the work is getting to play within the world of make-believe. It’s why he’s drawn to the sets of filmmaker Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Digging for Fire, Win It All) and turned off by micro-managing directors who kill the magic and overshoot scenes. “I’m not here for your final cut. I’m here for right now—me and this other human being can act. Let us act, and get the camera out of here. Hide it, and let us go!”Jake joins Off Camera to talk about forging a relationship with his absent father, the rude awakening he got after dropping out of high school, and his stint as a degenerate gambler…luckily, he was saved by New Girl.