YouSaid · the spoken record

Matt Ross

lines on the record: 136
first: 2017-04-24
most recent: 2017-04-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, talk Where you got so, yeah, there was a little bit. So I worked in, I lived in New York from the time I graduated until 2001. In fact, my wife and I”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's true. I think that, or you become very successful, and then you are part of the core filmmaking team. Sure.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Though I was treated very well at Juilliard, that was the beginning. And I wrote, I started writing in high school fiction. And then I started writing screenplays and stories while I was at Juilliard. And then that's when I really thought, what do I want to do? And the first money I made when I graduated, not from theater because you make an inscribed amount of money, but when I made, I did some TV things and I took all that money and I started making short films So I was doing them at the same time. Now, ask me a question yet?”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Before I answer that, let me go back and kind of correct you. Sure, yes, absolutely. What I was going to say is that I think I was.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I saw a path and I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it and it felt like I think when you're young, you're looking for ways to define yourself. And people do that through music or clothes or whatever. But I was looking like, what am I who are? It's interesting.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And some, I think there are many kinds of actors just like there are many kinds of everything. And some people are inherently performers and some people are not. And I don't need to be recognized. I don't need to be flattered in that way. I don't need that attention. I don't need to be the center of attention. When I was very young, and I've thought about this certainly, I think one of the reasons why I fell into acting was because I was insecure and an unhappy child. And I think that it was one of the first things I did where there was some positive reinforcement. Adults came up to me and said, you know, I don't know if you want to do this, but you could do this. And that was happening to me when I was 13, and I didn't play sports. I mean, I played football, but I wasn't good at it. There was no other direction that was coming. I got a little of that academically. I was decent in school, but I didn't want to go into academia necessarily.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a, Juilliard was tumultuous for me because I had on one hand I was treated very well. I didn't want to drop out because, and everyone has their own journey there, but mine was lead roll, tiny part, lead roll, tiny part, lead roll for four years. Every time I was playing the lead role, I was obviously very happy and very challenged. And then when I was playing a tiny role, I thought I should. It's my turn to step back and let someone else. So I was very well treated. While I was there, I was also Having some real questions about what I wanted to do with my life and whether I wanted to be an actor, I enjoyed it. I found it very challenging emotionally and intellectually. The problem solving part of it I loved. I'm not a performer though.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know him. Yes, but there are people that are part of my peer group, people who maybe started before me, who I saw break through. Like, you know, everyone has their own path, but sometimes people do break through. And obviously someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman, you know. Phil was a character, was a character. The combination of, I think it was Boogie Nights and Happiness. Those films were shot at different times. They came out at the same time. And I think people were like, oh my God, who is this guy? And he was a journeyman actor until that point. And then it changed. And I never had that kind of break. I had consistent work.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just because I admire him, and I think I wanted to be him when I was young. I loved being in that environment. Breaks have been incremental. You know, I never.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Theater or I think the first thing that happened that was a good job for me was I was casting a play at Lincoln Center. That was good. Early on, it didn't change my life, but I was very happy to be cast in 12 monkeys, this Terry Gilliam film.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're at a very young age playing roles that you would never play in the real world. So, you know, you're 18 or 22 or 21 or whatever and you're playing Richard III. You would never be cast as that, you know. And so you're pushed and pulled. And I think that's good, and it's an environment You fail? Well, you know, later.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that at a very young age, you're dealing with very complicated texts. So we're doing Shaw and Shakespeare and Chekoff and Restoration Comedy, which is rough stuff. And Shaw is difficult too. And all these things are very difficult.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, in any environment, whether it's academic or more conservatory training, you're reflecting on the teachers and your classmates anyway, and you're going to have to learn your own process and your own path. And you either say, oh, you're given an opportunity to say, this is a tool that I can use or I'm going to reject that tool And I was realizing pretty early on that I thought I already had a pretty developed sense of my own process. Right.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, certainly they were. Absolutely they were. I mean, I love, yeah, they were absolutely part of my desire and hope. I didn't know. I just. I think the truth is, not just that I was fearful of just moving there, I didn't know what I would do, but I also thought I need to study this if I'm going to really do this. So I wanted to study. Yeah, I think when I was there, I realized. That I had a lot of experience already, and I had a pretty formed idea of what it was to be an actor and that.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Page number. No, no, I think for me it was that many of the actors I admired were theater trained. And I always think of someone like Meryl Really? She was like the. Arguably, our greatest actress. And I just thought if you're going to do something, you really should study it and take it seriously. I also, I think, probably at that age was fearful of moving. I didn't know what it would mean to just move to New York or LA and how would you just didn't see a path. I didn't see a path.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Essentially At the time, and these things change as the teachers go in and out, but Juliard, NYU, and Yale were considered the top drama schools. There may be others that are as good as that. And what is your hope?”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and yes, and I think I would have also had access to film classes and a trajectory to be a filmmaker. I think I was very insecure about that because I didn't know what to create a trajectory for that. Whereas in theater, and one of the reasons why I started getting to acting early on was because I saw the path. I met, I was around adult actors. I said, well, you need training. You go to drama school or whatever. Exactly. I had a path.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, shooting on Super 8 film. And then we start working in video because that was the transition in videos coming in. At the time, I think my grandfather gave me a super eight camera. He had one and he gave me one, and I taught myself to edit, and I was really into claymation. I would do stop motion animation.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You'd actually make them in camera a lot of the time, and we would also like, you know, we did, I remember doing. We build models and then the lasers. I would actually take a needle.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know like most or many American teenagers that were in awe and loving Star Wars and all those other films, I was making my own versions of those and I think I was very pulled between I used to fantasize about being my brother and my cousin and I wanted to be We wanted to work in special effects, like we just loved the mechanics of it And the artistry of it. And we fantasize about that. And that was the beginning of computer animation. And so we would make our own films. I made my own films.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My friend Rex and I were priests at one point. I think he was stoned most of the time. And we would crack each other up and hide in our priest cloaks. And I think my line was... Yes, my Lord, but you must wait till you be called for. That was my one line. Wow, well done. Yeah, thank you. It's still riveting. It's chilling right now. So while I was doing that, I was...”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Super early. And we're also doing sword fighting. We were doing swordifying demonstrations because we were really into that as it became a high school. And then I got into the actual festival with a couple of my friends and we were all, there was like four or five of us. Every year they needed Towns kids to like in midsummer night's dream, you have little kids running around as ferries, or in Richard III, you need 10 soldiers, 15 soldiers for the battle scenes or any of the history plays. When we became young men, we were in high school, we were just canon fodder. We were just, they simply needed people to swordfight in the background, which was great. And sometimes we'd have, we'd play pages in Roman Juliet or Henry V.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was my beginning introduction to Shakespeare. And then he continued to direct kids. And it evolved into a program where, because he was working through the education department at the festival, he would bring kind of workshops for students and he would bring some actors that want to be involved. And we would do scenes. Wow, so you were trained.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I wasn't writing. No, so I was doing it in a Shakespeare festival. And so what happened was. There is a man named Paul Barnes who was in the education department and he wanted to be a director. So the year before they had some sons and daughters of some actors and directors at the festival had got together and put on a Shakespeare play. And on a Monday night is dark, so they use the actual stage. And I think they wanted to do it again. And he said, well, I'm interested in directing. So would you guys like me to direct it? I think that's what happened. I joined the second year and they did Hamlet. And I played Bernardo, who's one of the soldiers in the beginning. I played the Player King and one of the gravediggers. We made both Grave Diggers into one. So I was newspicker number one, Zero, Sergeant Three.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm sure there was some, I was trying to channel some of this chaos and minor trauma because it really is not, it's pretty minor, all things considered. And I was fascinated. I mean, partly it was just fantasy and role playing and wanting to take.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Acting or storytelling. And I was a shy, quiet kid. I think, I mean, we don't need to, I mean, people say, or it is said that all artists come from broken. Families or homes in some way. And certainly mine was a decidedly middle class one. There was no abuse or anything. But I think we moved a lot. My parents separating and divorced was traumatic.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. It was. It really was. But the guy who played Hamlet couldn't have been more than 13. And in my memory of him was that he was really good. And I think he actually was. So, what happened was I loved theater storytelling. I also at the time was making short films”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was not taught to be afraid of it. No one was telling me this is complex. I first related to it on an emotional basis, I would say, but because I did Shakespeare plays when I was really young, I did Hamlet when I was 13. I didn't play Hamlet, but I was in the play.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I got involved with the Shakespeare plays. Shakespeare was my introduction, I guess, to storytelling and dramatic poetry. And I think looking back on it, especially seeing reflecting with my own children and seeing when they read Shakespeare or something like that, they're afraid of it or that”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and we ended up living really far into the woods outside of a place called Eagle Point, which is a tiny town. But I saw Richard III, and I remember having kind of a transformative experience. I don't know what I understood. But there was this character who was a murderer, and yet you wanted him to succeed. It kind of blew my little mind. And I probably was around 12, you know, maybe, maybe. Maybe 11, 11, 12, 13, somewhere in there. And there was also sword fighting. And I thought that was swordfight.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it may have been Star Wars. I mean, I lived in England actually when Star Wars came out, but I think it was earlier than that. I think the first time I saw something that was, you know what it was? It was, I think it was called with Sean Connery, and I think it was called Lion in the Winter, Lion in Winter. And there was a little blonde boy, and I'd really blonde hair when I was a kid. And I remember, and it was in the desert, and there was sword fighting, and it was an adventure. And I think I remember having kind of a fantasy experience where I thought, oh, I'd love to be there and do that. Then, when I saw theater, I grew up in Oregon, and there was a Shakespeare festival near where we lived.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's unfortunate because obviously at that age, You learn really quickly. But anyway, we were thrown into, we lived in rural England and Sussex for a couple years, and I went to Waterloo Straton School, and then she came back to the US and started Rudolf Steiner School in Oregon, and that's where I was raised. And I got into theater. That was the beginning of this journey. Well, this is true for everyone globally, but I mean, I think the first probably... Religious experience I had were in the movie theater when I was a kid”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yeah, and I'm sure they're in Los Angeles and New York, you're all over. I went to one in England, and it certainly wasn't that demographic. It was rural. My mom wanted to start a university in this country. I'm sorry, not a university, a school, but the only university was at the time, I believe, there was one in either Sweden or Germany, and the other one was in England. And I think that... Her marriage had just dissolved, and you know, she was raising two kids, and I think she thought it would be, I'd have to ask her, but I believe she thought it was just too overwhelming. It would be too overwhelming for us to have to learn another language. And so she took snow.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People don't know, they may know, but Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian theologian and educator. You find Waldorf schools or Steiner schools. In this country, they tend to be in, I would say, wealthy progressive neighborhoods, like in Cambridge, Massachusetts or places like that. Although there's one in the East Bay.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I was raised by a single mother, I grew up in Oregon and I lived in England for a while as well My mother wanted to start a Waldorf School.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But as I should have, it was denied me clearly. But I want to talk about you because one of the things that I think we're going to talk about the show and all kinds of things that's coming up for its fourth season, and you've created a memorable role as a person I really dislike and have covered people like you, and I find it fascinating that you really nailed it so well. Then I want to talk about you first, because you have a very, varied career. People think of you obviously as an actor, and you've been in lots of stuff, and you were also on all kinds of great series, Belove and stuff like that. You were fantastic in that. But you also, I want to talk about your background, how you got to where you got. And I want to talk about your acting and directing to and writing, because you're sort of the whole package when you think about that.”
2017-04-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Ross, actor/director · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT