Podcast episode 244ish: Larry Miller

It's great when people you've admired for years turn out to be great people. Such was the case with Larry Miller. I first saw him back on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in the 1980s many times. Then he moved on to many a character role in many a movie. But he's still doing stand-up. And surprisingly, he admitted on this podcast episode, he feels he's just starting to feel he gets it after 32 years on stage. We sat down in his hotel room on an off-day shooting (he was here making another film) and he couldn't have been nicer. And what a positive outlook he has on life. He's a regular Benedict Spinoza. From The Story of Philosophy, by Brian Magee:

...[Spinoza] argued that it was absurd for individuals to be obsessed by their personal problems, these being merely petty concerns: we should try to see our problems as occupying the place they actually do in the totality of things; and when we do that we shall see them as insignificant – and this will greatly help us to bear them.

You'll see what I mean when you listen to the episode, which runs ten minutes longer than most of the others and could very easily have run twice that long. We talked about his days on Carson, starting out in New York with Jerry Seinfeld, and he offers many words of wisdom along the way. Enjoy.

As always, click below to listen right here and now on your computer. Or download it at, say, iTunes, onto your personal listening device to listen at your leisure whenever and wherever you like.

And check out some early Miller from back in the day: