For most of his life, Marc Maron was a struggling stand-up comedian. Then, in 2009, he began experimenting with podcasting in his garage in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The show, WTF with Marc Maron, has become a cornerstone of the medium—he’s recorded more than 900 episodes, and guests have included everyone from Sharon Stone to Keith Richards to President Obama. (He’s since moved to a new, bigger house but still records in his garage.)

More recently, Maron turned to acting, costarring on Netflix’s GLOW as Sam Sylvia, a B-movie director who coaches an all-female wrestling league (Season Two airs on June 29). We talked to him about his battles and what success finally feels like.



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ESQ: How do you get into character for GLOW?

Marc Maron: I put on those pants, I put on those glasses, get the hair going, then I look in the mirror and I’m like, “I’m that guy.” This is the first time I’ve really done a show where I’m not fundamentally playing me.

You’ve talked about how, until recently, you didn’t feel like you were successful. How did you deal with the false starts in your career? I know there were these sort of “almost” moments earlier where you hosted Short Attention Span Theater after Jon Stewart, you auditioned for SNL.

It’s awful. You watch others get opportunities and you don’t understand why it’s not working out for you. It’s easy to get bitter and angry. Not unlike having not-great parents, it’s very hard not to blame yourself. Then if you can’t handle that after a certain point, how much self-flagellation can you take before you eventually redirect that onto your peers or on audiences? You just show up with your own self-criticism to the point where it’s amplified self-pity. It becomes a way of seeing the world that is very destructive and really kind of a dead end. It’ll feed itself. I lived in that for a long time.

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How did you get out of it?

I think sobriety helped somewhat. But then I fucked up. I ruined a couple marriages in sobriety, my career went into the toilet in sobriety, I went broke in sobriety. When you’re in resentment, when you’re in a victim mind-set—I think it’s a type of demonic possession. Looking at a future of a no-name headliner in B rooms who comics respect—a sort of anonymity—that was where I was going. When I was 45 and my second divorce kind of destroyed me, I didn’t know what to do. There was no real plan B. You may think you have one, but when you’re in your 40s, it’s probably a fantasy.

I don’t have anxiety dreams; I’m living my anxiety dream.

When I started the podcast, I really had no expectations. But the fact that I persisted and really started talking to people was helpful not just for interviews but for me. I was able to reintegrate myself into the world of comedy and also reintroduce myself to my own curiosity and to my own vulnerability. The missing self-esteem was able to fill itself in because people enjoyed what I was doing. The way I present myself on the podcast is a broad spectrum of who I am emotionally and creatively, and people liked it. Initially, I thought it was more about my guests, but then they don’t exist without me, the podcast. That really informed my confidence in stand-up, in acting, and everything else. Looking back on the past, SNL and all that other stuff, honestly, I wasn’t ready to do any of that. I was fueled by anger and entitlement.

What does success feel like now?

I’m trying to believe that there are things that you can enjoy. Being the type of person I am, having the type of brain I have, you don’t really think about happiness as much as you think about relief. It’s not about I just want to be happy; it’s really not. I never really think that way. I always think, Well, I’d like to feel a little better. Happiness, that’s a whole other ball of wax.

One of the things that’s so refreshing about your podcast is the authenticity—not only that you bring but also that you bring out in your guests. What have you learned about getting people to be that open and vulnerable?

I just think it’s a matter of being in the present. People tend to prepare an awful lot, and they’ve got an idea of how things are going to go based on their overpreparation. If you’re entering any sort of situation with such defined expectations that your brain is going to try to manifest those things, you’re going to miss whatever’s going on. The fact is that people walk through my house [into my studio]. It’s just about having some real engagement. It’s going to be better if you’re not so beholden to your fictional script.

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Time for some self-deprecating questions. What’s the task you’re most likely to procrastinate?

Most of them. Maybe I don’t think in terms of procrastination. Maybe I just think in terms of the excitement of waiting till the last minute.

Ongoing anxiety nightmare?

Are you kidding? I don’t have anxiety dreams; I’m living my anxiety dream.

What do you do when a joke bombs?

Most of the job for most of your career is pretending that you’re not afraid. Then eventually, if you’re lucky, you’re no longer afraid after a certain point. I’ve certainly eaten my share of shit on stage, but a lot of times it was a low-pressure situation. We were doing alternative venues, we weren’t getting paid. That was very helpful for me to build a certain amount of confidence and also to take those kinds of chances. A lot of the humor is going to come if something doesn’t work, because maybe there’s a whole avenue for laughs to get from having a joke not work.

What’s the worst piece of career advice you’ve ever gotten?

The idea that you should do everything you can in the beginning, or take whatever it is that comes your way and make the best of it, or consider it a learning experience I think is just bad advice. That’s what happens early on because the people that want you to work for them want to make money off of you making money, so they’re like, “You should do it. You should put on the dress, wear the clown’s head, put on the gorilla suit. It’s a good job.”

Sometimes you really do have to follow your gut about not doing something. Because if you don’t have the fight in you, who’s to say that that job won’t completely crumble your whole dream? You want the approval, you want the work, you want to make money. But you also have what you think you want to do. If you’re not careful, if you just take the gig to take the gig, you might not ever get out of that gig.

Adam Grant is the host of WorkLife, a TED podcast, and the author of .

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