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Mark interviews actor Rob Zwiebel. · The Mark Simone Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's better than two hours of Mark Simone?
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Three. More Mark.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: The Mark Simone Show. Now nine till noon weekdays.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: 710WOR.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Well, Alan Zweibel, one of the great comedy writers in
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the world, a playwright, the author, but he should get
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: his book, Laugh Lines, Story of His Career. Very good book.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: A lot of great stories in there. Laugh Lines. Follow
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Alan Zweibel on Twitter and Instagram. All that stuff. Alan Zweibel,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: how you doing?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I'm great, Mark. How are you?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm good. Hey, your buddy, former partner there, Billy Crystal,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: you wrote his last Broadway show with him, just opened
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: on Broadway. New show, rave reviews. I assume you were there, right?
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  Speaker 2: Well, we were there opening night, and it was magical.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: It was, you know, what he's done. has taken a
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  Speaker 2: number of tragedies that have happened in his life in
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: this past year. And he gave tribute to his home
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: that he lost in the fires, to his manager who
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: died after 47 years of being represented by him, and,
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  Speaker 2: of course, Rob and Michelle Reiner. And somehow... He magically
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  Speaker 2: made the evening really funny, really touching, and really life-affirming.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And it was brilliant.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just open. It's called, it's Billy Crystal's show.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: It's called 860. Everybody go see it. You'll love it.
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  Speaker 1: But you wrote the last one with him. Explain to
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  Speaker 1: me how the hell you do this. I mean, the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: last one-man show that was big was Jackie Mason, but
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that was like basically his nightclub act. but a guy
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: just talking for two hours, just talking casually. How the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: hell do you write something like that and make it
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  Speaker 1: gripping for an audience?
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, look, 700 Sundays is one of the
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  Speaker 3: great honors of my life and career because here was
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  Speaker 3: a guy, Billy, who trusted me to put words into
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  Speaker 3: the mouths of his family, of his relatives, most of
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: whom I never met.
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  Speaker 2: But that was easier because, look, he's a Jew from
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  Speaker 2: Long Island. I'm a Jew from Long Island. It's not
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  Speaker 2: like I was writing for people I never met before.
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  Speaker 2: So my contributions were me writing about my grandparents and
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  Speaker 2: my relatives and just gave it to him. They're the
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  Speaker 2: same people. With this one, it was so personal. so personal.
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  Speaker 2: He's the only one who could have written it. You know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: nobody else could have done it except for him and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: him alone. He had to go deep into his heart
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  Speaker 2: and talk from a very, very hurtful yet positive place.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: That's the fine balance over there. You know, with 700 Sundays, look,
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  Speaker 2: He knew his life and this and that, and whatever
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  Speaker 2: my contributions were, augmented what he had.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But explain what the hell he does. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know how you do this to have enough delivery and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: timing to just talk. It's not a 92nd Street Y.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: It's a Broadway stage. Normally you've got singing and dancing
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and sets, and it's just a guy talking. How do
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you hold people's attention delivery-wise?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Well, he's got a great set. you know, that was
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: built for him and he had a, has a really
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: good director. And, uh, as far as the just talking
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: part is concerned. Yeah. If he stops talking, you're just
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: looking at him and it's silent. Right. So what, what
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: kind of fun is that? The, um, what it is
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  Speaker 2: is you get into the talk and it takes you
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  Speaker 2: for a ride.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It, the material, the memories, what do you want to say? Um,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: you coast with it. Now, that being said, in order
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: to make you laugh, in order to make you, the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: audience I'm talking about, cry, he's got to go deep
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: into his heart. All right? He's got to touch himself
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: so he'll touch you with what he's saying. As physically
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: exhausting as it is to do eight shows a week,
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  Speaker 2: it's just as emotionally exhausting to go to those places.
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  Speaker 2: It's like going to a shrink eight times a week,
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  Speaker 2: telling the shrink your story eight times a week for
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  Speaker 2: an hour and a half each time, and the shrink
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  Speaker 2: at the end all along laughs, cries, and stands and claps.
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  Speaker 2: So it's very, very cathartic that way. So on one hand,
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  Speaker 2: it's very, very remedial. And on the other hand, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you are performing, and it's exhausting.
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  Speaker 1: So now explain this to me. Why the hell would
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  Speaker 1: anybody want to do this? It's an amazing performance. It's unbelievable.
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  Speaker 1: Why would you want to have to repeat that eight
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  Speaker 1: times a week, every week? Didn't your friend Larry David
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  Speaker 1: try that, and he wanted to get out of there
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  Speaker 1: after a month? Well, Larry was a riot.
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  Speaker 2: Larry's wasn't the one-man show, but Larry didn't want to
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  Speaker 2: have to say the same things every night, which... there's
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  Speaker 2: a problem if you're speaking to other actors because they
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  Speaker 2: should know when they're supposed to talk, you know? So
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  Speaker 2: Larry was confined to it and he would send me,
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  Speaker 2: he would send me notes saying, I'd go, how are
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: you doing? And he'd write back saying, I feel like
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  Speaker 2: I'm on a death row and there's never going to
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: be a call from the governor. Yeah. Some people who are, um,
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  Speaker 2: Very facile and very, very great performers and menologists like
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: doing it. Others do not. Billy is a master at it.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Look how many times he hosted the Oscars. Look how
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: many times he started off doing comic relief. Go through
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: his career. I'm not even talking about the TV and
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: the movies now. Talking about things to live audience. Touring
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  Speaker 2: and all of that. He's a great monologist, and audiences
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  Speaker 2: love him.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Alan Zweibel, the great writer, producer. Oh, you're working on
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a Broadway show I can't wait to see. Is it
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a musical about Rodney Dangerfield?
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's been tabled.
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  Speaker 1: What?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: What? It's been tabled. It doesn't mean it's not going
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: to happen, but there are some issues internally. Not me, but...
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: with others involved in it. So it's been, it's been
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  Speaker 2: put aside. I've got, I've got a movie that I
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: wrote with Barry Levinson that Barry is going to direct.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: He's the Oscar winning director of Rain Man and The
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Natural and all those great movies. And Billy and I
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  Speaker 2: also wrote a movie, an animated movie that I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: has some promise that it's going to go forward too.
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  Speaker 2: So while I'm waiting for the Rodney thing to resolve itself,
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  Speaker 2: I'm still at my laptop every day.
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  Speaker 1: I was waiting for this Rodney, because we knew Rodney.
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  Speaker 1: He was the most complex guy.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, he used to walk down the street in his pajamas,
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  Speaker 2: you know, in the middle of the day. So, yeah, yeah.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun there, you know, to see
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  Speaker 2: what makes this guy tick. And, of course, all those jokes,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: which are just, incomparable, you know? So let's see what happens.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But he was amazing. His private life, total degenerate everything.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: But then he'd go to work and he was the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: most disciplined craftsman in the world. Well, he was amazing.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. When I would write for him, this was
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: before Saturday Night Live, I would go to his apartment.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Let's say four o'clock in the afternoon. He was still
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: in his pajamas with a bathrobe, and I would write
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a joke. Then we would spend an hour moving the words,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: the same words around, but in a different order. He
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: was a master technician, and he knew his own voice
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  Speaker 2: better than anyone.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, master of every detail, except for one thing. When
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: you'd see him, he'd be in a bathrobe, and he
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: could never tie the thing enough Oh.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: God, it was flopping around. Everything was like flailing.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was billowing. Absolutely. Anyway, Alan Zweibel, they don't
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: make writers like you anymore. You know, we had these
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: legendary great writers. It was Larry Gelbart. There was Herb Sargent.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: But there's no new versions of you guys with that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: kind of.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. You know, there may be. I
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: just don't know. who they are, if they operate the
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: same way. There's a lot of really good television on,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: so there are good writers. But when you talk about
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: the Larry Gelbarts of the world, you look at the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Sid Caesar's writers' room. Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Neil Simon, Woody Allen came on later.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: These were the writers.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: God, these are writers. And, um, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: who created, uh, you know, mash and wrote all those
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: great movies and everything. I hope this is true. I'm
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: not sure it is, but I pray that it's true.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I heard, That honest tombstone, right? This wonderful writer, the
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: honest tombstone, the epitaph is finally a plot.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true, but that sounds like it.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's true either, but unless I
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: visit his grave, I'm going to tell people that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Well, Alan Zweibel, we're out of time, but hey, everybody
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: get his book. His autobiography is wonderful. You'll love it.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: It's called Laugh Lines. And are you appearing anywhere next?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: You know, something I'm going to, uh, I'm speaking with my, uh,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: speakers bureau and, I should get some cities, um, you know,
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  Speaker 2: pretty soon on my, on my calendar.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Well, let us know in the meantime, get his book,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: laugh lines and get it to Amazon or wherever you
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: get your books. And, uh, Alan's white bell. Thanks for
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: being with us.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Take care. Hey, don't forget coming up at noon, Buck Sexton,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Clay Travis, great show. You got, uh, The most listened
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to radio show in America, Sean Hannity at three. The
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: very funny Jimmy Fallon tonight at nine on 710WOR.