Show Notes
Mark Duplass joins Scene Stealers to break down his career : from shooting Creep on a $100 budget in a cabin outside LA to building the Creep Tapes on AMC+ and Shudder, working with a teenage director on Backrooms, and reflecting on 15+ years of doing things his own way. He discusses mental health, mentorship, and why the old rules of "breaking in" don't apply anymore + scene breakdowns from The League, Creep Tape, Safety Not Guaranteed, and Paddleton. Season 3 of Creep Tapes is out now on AMC+ and Shudder.
00:00 – Cold open 00:03 – Welcome + Creep Tapes Season 3 01:09 – The origin of Creep: shooting on a $100 budget with Patrick 02:38 – "It never has to see the light of day" : how Creep almost didn't exist 03:50 – Selling Creep to Netflix and finding an audience slowly 05:01 – Growing up in New Orleans and redefining what "success" looked like 06:02 – Survivor's guilt and why he mentors young filmmakers 07:28 – "I got my dream and I don't like it anymore" 09:50 – Why he keeps bouncing between big paychecks and $100 shoots 10:54 – Building an "oddball career" as actor/writer/director/producer 11:45 – Mentoring Colin Trevorrow and getting Safety Not Guaranteed made 13:24 – Working with Kane Parsons, the teenage director of Backrooms 15:03 – His mentorship philosophy: belief over advice 16:37 – Opening up about mental health on Instagram 20:15 – The response from fans and why it mattered 21:29 – The Russell Crowe "Beautiful Mind" analogy for mental health 22:11 – Seeing Tori Amos and what healing looks like over time 23:26 – Revisiting his SXSW "Cavalry" speech, 11 years later 24:22 – Why the path is more complicated now but the tenets are the same 25:28 – YouTube and Tubi as the new way to prove your show before streamers buy it 26:51 – CREEP TAPES 27:16 – Playing different characters every episode of Creep Tapes 29:11 – Half-writer, half-actor: his unscripted performance style 33:30 – "Balls equality" and nudity on his own terms 36:01 – SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED 37:57 – Scene breakdown: Safety Not Guaranteed 40:12 – Pulling favors to make a $750K movie look expensive 41:15 – The scripts that never get made and why that's fine 42:11 – What actually gets him up in the morning now 43:10 – Sean Baker's Oscar run and stepping back from the chase 44:06 – Producing Elliot Tuttle's $50K film Blue Film 47:04 – THE LEAGUE 48:43 – Remembering $8,000-an-episode beginnings 50:20 – Why big "man-child" comedies stopped getting made 51:41 – Where Tires fits into that conversation 52:38 – Airport encounters and fans who want The League back 53:28 – Learning how to be gracious with fans 54:10 – Signing a six-year deal and deciding Season 7 was "mostly about the money" 56:14 – Behind the scenes with NFL players on The League 58:34 – PADDLETON 59:47 – Paddleton and the breath-holding trick that fooled Ray Romano 01:03:42 – Closing thoughts + where to watch Creep Tape Season 3
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