90. Marc Forster: A Man Called Marc

Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out

Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast

Mygirlfriendsboyfriend, Interviews, Comedy Interviews, Sleepwalkwithme, Iraglass, Comedy, Thankgodforjokes, Thenewone, Mikebirbiglia, Dontthinktwice, Birbiglia

4.8 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For Mike, filmmaker Marc Forster is a rare example of making a new friend as an adult. Mike and Marc met on the new film A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks, in which Mike plays the antagonist. Since then, they’ve become good friends. Now Marc sits down with Mike to discuss his journey from Germany to Switzerland to NYU film school. Marc explains how he built a filmography so varied that it includes the zombie apocalypse blockbuster World War Z as well as the Winnie the Pooh story Christopher Robin. Plus, Marc’s advice to aspiring filmmakers, why his family calls each other “shnufi," and why the buddy system is important in creative pursuits.

Transcript

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0:00.0	At one point, my character is a thorn in Tom Hanks' character's side.
0:04.7	He's a real estate developer.
0:07.1	And at one point, you came over to me and you're like, maybe on this take, you could just
0:12.5	get in his face, just really get in there and make it very uncomfortable.
0:19.6	I was like, oh, shit.
0:23.3	I got to get in Tom Hanks' face and he's not going to know it's coming.
0:28.1	I mean, it ended up being wonderful.
0:30.3	It was a good take.
0:32.3	I like that imitation of the accent.
0:39.2	That is the voice of Mark Forster, one of my favorite film directors.
0:45.2	I worked with him.
0:46.4	I'm in a film with Tom Hanks right now that Mark directed called a man called Otto.
0:51.8	I couldn't recommend it more highly.
0:53.4	I watched it.
0:54.4	I cried a bit.
0:58.0	I was a lot.
1:00.0	I'm parsing my words as to how much I cried.
1:03.5	Let me be really specific.
1:04.9	I cried a lot, 10 minutes in and then I cried a real lot in the vital 20 minutes.
1:09.8	And I laughed in between it.
1:11.4	That's actually what we talk about today a lot.
1:14.7	Is the relationship between comedy and drama and the calibration of that.
	...

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