The Vince Vaughn who lives in my head is one of my favorite comedic actors. He’s the swaggering, charmingly sarcastic and cheerily ingratiating star of that great run of hit comedies from the early 2000s: “Old School,” “Dodgeball,” “Wedding Crashers,” “The Break-Up.” (His cameo in “Anchorman” and recurring role as Freddy Funkhouser on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” are also prime comedic Vaughniana.) And putting my own preferences aside, I’d argue that there’s a whole microgeneration of dudes who tried to swipe the neo-Rat Pack vibes that Vaughn was able to deploy so winningly in “Swingers.”
In more recent years, though, after the often R-rated, kind of bro-y comedies with which Vaughn made his mark lost some of their cultural mojo, he has focused more on dramatic roles: the highly anticipated, widely maligned and then critically reconsidered second season of “True Detective,” for example, or his performances in the brutally uncompromising crime films of the director S. Craig Zahler (“Brawl in Cell Block 99,” “Dragged Across Concrete”).
But as good as Vaughn can be with darker characters, I never connected those parts to the man who played them. Ahead of our interview, I made the perhaps-common journalist’s mistake of expecting to talk with someone akin to the playfully glib guy from those comedies I love. (That’s in no small part thanks to how Vaughn’s role as a world-weary, wiseass former detective in the new Apple TV+ series “Bad Monkey” scans as a mature update of his comedic persona.) But what I was expecting from Vaughn wasn’t what I got. Instead, I found someone more provocative and earnest, who came most alive when he put me under the conversational microscope. Which is to say, I got a surprise.
Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with R-rated comedies anymore. Why do you think they’ve become harder to crack? When you talk about the R comedies in Hollywood, I feel like there’s a set of rules that the executives follow. The goal is not to get fired — they can defend why they greenlit something. The R comedies that took off was the studio saying to young people that were funny, “Go ahead.” They didn’t micromanage. We were on the sets changing lines and trying to make each other laugh. It’s not done as well by committee. They started managing everything too much and trying to control it all.
An undercurrent to that answer is that studios got timid. Do you think the culture has changed such that the kinds of movies that were your bread and butter are just not in vogue anymore? Not at all. They’re still culturally in vogue. Look at the stand-up comics. Why is the audience gravitating to those comics that are challenging with the things that they’re doing? You have people that are pushing the envelope, and people are watching. The people that got timid knew better. It wasn’t like they felt righteous. It was just the pressures of the moment.
What do you mean? The culture didn’t change. Human beings are the same now as when the myths were written. Part of storytelling and songs is to explore ideas and allow certain feelings or emotions to come to the forefront because they exist in all of us. The Shel Silverstein song “A Boy Named Sue” that Johnny Cash made famous: The want to kill your parent because of something they did with a name is something that could exist inside people. I don’t know that we have to boycott that song because Shel Silverstein or Johnny Cash are encouraging the murdering of parents for mistakes.
I don’t think anybody is trying to cancel “A Boy Named Sue.” But the thing you’re dancing around is the cancel-culture impulse. Do you think there are stories that are not getting told that should be? No, I’m not dancing around it. There was a moment of certain people feeling like they could be the judge and jury of what is a story or what’s too far. It’s a crazy thing as human beings to think that my ideas are the best and if I can just force people to do what I believe, the world will be great. But, yeah, I don’t need someone to take a book off the shelf. I should be allowed to choose what I read, and part of the journey is exploring things.
What’s something that you saw or read that opened up your mind? It started with literature. The one by Stephen King that really blew me away was “Rage.”
That’s the one about — The school shooter. I read it when I was a freshman in high school. It was about a kid who was disenfranchised.
And takes his class hostage. He takes his class hostage. It was like “The Breakfast Club,” but a darker, R-rated version. He holds the class hostage after shooting the teacher, and he says, we were friends, and now you don’t even look at me in the hallway.
How did it change you? It just gave me perspective. Sometimes someone is hurting and not what they seem. It’s one of the great things about the John Hughes movies, which was lost on the teenage movies that came after him: If you use “The Breakfast Club,” for example, they all arc and transform and realize that they’re complete human beings — they’re not just the jock, or just the homecoming queen, or the weird girl, or the geek. All of those movies still play because they’re investigating and exploring, in a comedic way, the truth.
Your argument is that people are still seeing those movies because they have themes that continue to resonate. I’m not having an argument. It’s more so an observation of reality that in that movie those characters from other backgrounds find a moment of acceptance and perspective on each other, but they start very opposed. So it’s less of an argument, truly, and more of a response to the line of what we’re talking about, which is nothing has changed except you have a bunch of dumb people who think that they are somehow more righteous than their neighbor, who are going to impose through force that it’s somehow bad to explore human beings in the extremes.
This is a heavier question. Mm-hmm.
I was thinking about that period, basically from “Old School” to “Couples Retreat,” when your stuff was really connecting. In that time you did a couple of films with Owen Wilson. He was struggling personally. You guys were friends. He had a suicide attempt. To be having personal success while your pal is at a low ebb — does that teach you something about the meaninglessness of success? I adore Owen. I think he’s not only superfunny and smart but he’s very empathetic. As far as success, it depends on your definition. I never saw success as results. If you feel like you were engaged and you did your best and you feel good about it, sometimes the results aren’t there, but you feel good, because you got better. I say this to you as a parent looking at kids: They’re not going to get a result of a smooth cutting of food at 5. But if they’re trying their hardest and they make mistakes, you’re telling them, You did great, because I saw you holding your fork and you lined your knife up.
I want you to get more personal. OK. Pick any area you want.
Let’s start with filmmaking. What’s something that you weren’t good at and then got better? I would say everything. Acting on camera, learning to talk to the person as if there weren’t cameras. Memorizing dialogue. Now it’s very easy for me, but when I started it was hard.
In your life, what’s something that you weren’t good at that you’ve improved? Everything.
Don’t say “everything” again! Well, I could pick any aspect.
So pick one, and burrow into that baby. Something in my personal life I felt that I wasn’t good at? There was not an area I was good at. Giving a speech publicly was scary to me. Or something as simple as letting a girl know that I liked her. My point with any of these is: You have to take the focus off evaluating yourself negatively. You have to find in it: Why is it worth it to do this? How do I take those things that are a challenge and use those to get better? And it’s OK if it goes bad or it doesn’t go well; I can’t cheat the process of trying. If I’m somehow being less personal or failing you, I’m not aware of how.
I was reading old magazine cover stories about you. Going back and reading those is interesting, because the picture that they paint is of a rabble-rouser. I think every one of those stories involves a scene at a bar. I thought, Are they unable to separate Vince Vaughn the guy from the “Swingers” character? I was a guy who enjoyed going out with friends, and we would definitely go out to bars, but I was also an actor who loved to read and watch things. I mean, I definitely had sides of me. I’ve had a very unique life. I had a lot of extreme experiences that gave me perspectives.
Can you share one? Well, my grandparents on both sides were from different extreme backgrounds. My one grandfather was an Italian immigrant from Naples, who I think only went to school until he was 8. He owned a small carnival park. He was a jeweler; he was a pawnshop broker. He wasn’t around my mom very much. My mom was raised by a single mom — she supported all the kids by herself, had a beauty salon. Then my dad’s father, he was a sharecropper and a steelworker and had a hundred-acre farm. His wife was Christian Lebanese. My dad was the first to go to college in his family. Then I kind of ascended from growing up in apartments and ended up in an upper-class suburb. So I had a lot of exposure to different things and different world views. Going back to “The Breakfast Club,” if we may, you’re talking about an archetype that they were presenting — “That’s a side of me, but it’s not the whole story.”
Do you think the extremes of your background influenced your politics? Am I right that you’re a libertarian? Yes, I definitely am a believer more in allowing individuals to make choices. So I think that drugs should be legal and people should have guns. But I realized that you have different cultures that would feel strongly. Like the hippies would get high and say, We’re not hurting anyone, what’s the big deal? Then the hunters would say, We have these guns, and we have a right to defend ourselves, and what’s the big deal? And they were kind of the same.
Guns and weed are not exactly the same. I’ll tell you why I think it is the same. The fear is if someone gets high, that they’re going to do something or could hurt people. Sometimes they just go to bed. And the fear is, someone has a gun, they might hurt somebody. But sometimes they’re just hunting. We’re so shaped by our environments and where we’re from. Even in parenting. Sometimes people parent the way their parents did.
Or in reaction. I find it to be more complicated than that. I’ll finish the political thing, because I think you’re interested. What I found was there’s always these “other guys” when, really, it’s only one guy. The two people that are totally opposed are so similar. I’d rather say let people make their choices, and they can make different choices and have the consequences of their choices.
A criticism of Hollywood would be that it’s overly woke or too concerned about political correctness. Do you feel as if that’s something that you’ve ever experienced or have come up against? Oh, for sure. I don’t know if I could tie it to politics. I mean, it’s so [expletive] boring. But anyone into censorship or banning stuff — it’s never been anything I think is cool. I loved hearing when I was a kid how exciting that N.W.A. came out and they weren’t trying to fit on a radio. Or Guns N’ Roses or Rage Against the Machine. I like stuff that’s provocative and challenging and committed to a point of view. You should hear different ideas. I don’t know anyone that feels the same at 60 that they did at 20.
You don’t think so? [Expletive] no. There’s no way.
But there are lifetime Republican voters, lifetime Democratic voters. People’s religious beliefs: I don’t know that those ebb and flow that widely over the course of someone’s lifetime. Who the [expletive] doesn’t go through life and year after year say, “I was on the wrong course,” or “I thought I had it figured out, but I didn’t know anything?”
What are you wrong about? You know, if I am wrong about stuff I’m not aware of it. I try to reflect on process and evolve. I know that I’m not 100 percent right. I’ve never come out of any project or interpersonal relationship and not evolved.
The last few years, you haven’t been around that much. Why is that? Did you want to take a break? Were you feeling burned out? Just doing other things? It’s funny, I actually have three things in the can. We shot “Bad Monkey” a while ago, and then there was the strike, and so the release date is later than what was intended. I did a movie called “Nonnas” — again, pushed with the strike. I just did a movie with Al Pacino and Simon Rex called “Easy’s Waltz.” So I have quite a few things completed. But I definitely got more selective. In being a parent and enjoying that process, I was more picky. For me, it’s like you want to ride every ride at the amusement park. You want to try different things.
You said you want to ride every ride at the amusement park. What rides are still left? There’s always different things, depending on where you’re at, to get engaged in. Directing, producing. Then also, for me, being a parent has been such a joy. Do you have kids?
Two. How old?
Seven and 9. Two girls. Yeah, man, you get it. I have a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old — boy and girl. How has that changed you?
I don’t feel as if fatherhood changed me in any fundamental ways. Interesting.
I felt very ready and comfortable as a father. There are other things in my life that changed me much more than fatherhood. What about you? Let me ask you this: In being a teacher who’s kind of guiding someone, do you feel that your process or approach has changed as time has gone on?
Yes, but this makes me sound like a cold, Spock-like person — People love Spock, by the way. Very popular character. You can’t have Captain Kirk without Spock, so please continue.
The differences, in this regard, have to do with having to understand where my kids are cognitively at the time I’m trying to teach them a given lesson. The best example of this would be: My mom just passed away, and I’m thinking about how to bring my children into that reality. How do a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old process what it means? But that’s more about trying to respond to where they are and less about, I have some new theory of parenting. Sorry to hear about the passing of your mom. That’s never easy.
I appreciate that. How did fatherhood change you? I don’t know that I’ve changed as far as like, I was cold and callous, and now I’ve learned to love. I think it’s just made me more empathetic, more patient, maybe have more tools at encouraging.
Could you encourage me? What area would you like encouragement in? You seem pretty self-assured, which is a good thing.
I feel as if there are places we could have gotten to in this interview — I could have pushed you harder. I was chickening out. Well, don’t chicken out. You can ask what you want, but I would say to you, My thought for you to reflect on would be, being a caretaker for the kids, where you think you might have had shifts in how you saw yourself or saw the world. I would ask you to reflect on that.
That’s my homework. Just part of our ongoing conversation: Where do you think you have shifted perspectives from that experience?
Vince, I’ll talk to you in a couple days. My pleasure, brother. I’ll talk to you soon.
Vaughn and I spoke again five days later.
I said to you toward the end of our first conversation that I chickened out a couple times. So I want to go back to some of the questions that I soft-pedaled. OK.
I asked whether it was difficult for your career to be going gangbusters at the same time that Owen Wilson was struggling personally. You gave an answer that was all about how one defines success. I’m not asking for gossip about Owen Wilson. I’m trying to understand the emotional dynamics of that moment for you. Was it difficult to wrap your head around the experience of doing so well while a friend was struggling? Yeah, I just think it’s a strange thing to ask somebody. I love Owen. I think he’s supertalented. It’s not my place to comment or speculate on whatever was going on with him. With success or whatever, I was really honest when I said I define success the only way that I think you can, which is by attempting your best approach to whatever you’re doing.
Want to know the real reason I was asking? Yeah, please.
Um, it was about five years ago — I lost my best friend to suicide. Everything was going great for me. There was a part of me that wondered if I was somehow not seeing what was going on with him because things were going so well. I’ve always wondered if I could have had a different perspective on that moment. I think that’s a common feeling anytime you lose somebody. Did I spend enough time? Was I connected? But I would also say to you that you’re not usually that powerful to be able to come in and fix everybody’s stuff all the time. You know, like there’s a sense of, Oh, if I could have done all of these things, I could have made that person different. We’re limited, I think, in the ability to change others.
You also talked about being a Second Amendment guy, saying people should have access to guns. America already has way more guns than any other similarly developed country and also more gun violence. That’s just the cost of doing business in American society? Help me understand your logic. It’s interesting. I don’t see other actors who say they believe in gun control getting asked it every time they do an interview. I think if you’re someone who, like you said, can’t get your mind around it, I don’t know if I’ll satisfy your concept with it. But the basic idea is that the individual is free and has a right to protect themselves.
Do you get asked about that a lot? There’s a consistency with it. It’s like that becomes a focal point — anybody who dares to not go with whatever the groupthink of the moment is.
I want to go back now to the homework assignment. The question was: How has fatherhood shifted my perspective? I came up with two answers. The first answer is that having kids — it’s so corny, it’s almost hard to say out loud — showed me that my capacity for love was deeper than I had previously understood. How would you define love?
Oh, gosh. An intense feeling of connection and desire for the other’s well-being. I think it’s something that never ends. I think having that in your life obviously helps you connect in so many different ways to so many different things and realizing there are things that we hold more dear than just our own lives.
We’re fully in the “men’s group” portion of the discussion. I think it’s for all people. I think to love something that much — country, God, your children, a spouse, a friendship — all those things, that connection to love, it’s so powerful.
My second answer. Yes.
Fatherhood made me think more deeply about what I wanted from life. Because when my kids were really little, I was unhappy with the job I had at the time. And I was just bringing it home every day, moping around. Then I thought, I do not want my kids to grow up with a dad who’s irritated and sullen because of work. So I did then consciously think, I have to change this situation. And I did. That was the other big change. I really respect you for that. Those kids are looking at you, and you realize one of the biggest ways they’re going to learn is not your speech in the car to and from school but by actions, by what you do.
Why are you so interested in questions about fatherhood? Well, I’m interested in what you’re sharing. I think you’re being genuine. I was curious: How did having kids affect your process with dealing with the loss of someone?
The thing I would say about that is: Losing my best friend and losing my mom — you realize you don’t get to live forever. I now see the hydrangeas in front of my house and appreciate how beautiful they are, because people I love will never get to have that appreciation again. It makes daily life more beautiful and meaningful. I didn’t have those feelings before. And maybe that extends to kids. There are little things they do that I appreciate in the moment; to know that my mom is not going to see these little things and that she would also have taken pleasure in them — it makes those things even more profound and moving than they would have otherwise been. I think that’s beautiful. And I think it’s painful and it’s hard, but those are the gifts that come out of it. I don’t know that it would be so hard if you didn’t love and care so much.
This is the weirdest celebrity interview of all time. … “Bad Monkey,” starring Vince Vaughn! Premiering this month on Apple TV+! I don’t know. It feels kind of natural. It feels like a genuine conversation and reflection, and you’re sharing stuff that I’ve been through, too, which is loss and life. Isn’t that ultimately what we’re exploring through song and stories? Sometimes we have to go through these things to get to the other side. We don’t always start at the place of enlightenment.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music or the New York Times Audio app.
The post Vince Vaughn Turned This Interview Into Self-Help appeared first on New York Times.
