Marc Maron may interview more Hollywood A-listers than anyone in the business. His massively popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, was on the ground floor of the podcast craze, and in the process cornered a massive part of the market when it came to both comedy and celebrity interviews. However, podcasts weren’t always accepted as a legitimate form of entertainment, and Maron recently told me a great story about Bryan Cranston and Jon Hamm showing up to record in his garage.
I recently caught up with Maron to discuss his new HBO comedy special From Bleak To Dark. When reflecting on the early days of his now-famous podcast, he said this:
You know, there are moments in the driveway, you know, walking into the garage back in the day. They're always kind of funny at the beginning because, you know, because podcasting was relatively new and most people had not been to Highland Park. So I got a lot of fairly big stars going, ‘Where the hell am I?’ … I remember when (Bryan) Cranston was coming in, he was sort of like, ‘What is this?’ And I'm like, ‘Hamm was here, I had Jon Hamm,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, Hamm did it? OK.’
So it sounds like the Hamm seal of approval made Bryan Cranston feel more comfortable about venturing into Marc Maron’s garage. These days, of course, we can assume that the comedian has a more legitimate studio, but back then, garages were a standard podcasting location.
Maron must have made plenty of friends in the industry, as those are some huge names to be getting in the early days. It makes sense that Jon Hamm would be down, as the actor notoriously doesn’t take himself too seriously. He famously gave up a huge chunk of his Fletch salary to make sure the movie got made, and he almost fired his agents after they suggested Top Gun: Maverick was below his pay grade. Bryan Cranston is, of course, also a beloved actor, who has plenty to watch on streaming if you’re a fan of the Breaking Bad star.
As for Maron, he has plenty going on outside of podcasting. He recently starred in the Academy Award-nominated film To Leslie, which thankfully you can stream now. His performance even received props from major stars like Kate Winslet, despite the awards snubs. Hell, he even came close to appearing in Avatar: The Way Of Water, and dropped some F-bombs reflecting on it in classic Maron fashion.
Despite all of this success, he’ll always be a stand-up comic first and foremost, and you can see his brand new special From Bleak To Dark on HBO Max right now! If you still haven’t signed up, we have the lowdown on subscribing to HBO Max.
