-Our next guest is an Emmy-nominated actor you know from shows such as "Friday Night Lights," "Fargo," and "Breaking Bad." He stars in the new film
"The Power of the Dog," which is in select theaters now
and on Netflix December 1st. Let's take a look. -Forward, 2, 3. Side, 2, hm. [ Humming ] -[ Crying ] -What is it, George? -Oh, just -- [ Sigh ] I wanted to say how nice it is not to be alone. -Please welcome back to the show
Jesse Plemons, everyone. [ Cheering and applause ] ♪♪ [ Whistling ]
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome back!
-Thank you. It's a good segue from Samberg,
that clip. -The end of that clip, yeah.
It had a real Samberg vibe to it.
-Yeah, it did. It did. [ Laughter ]
-I remember I heard the casting came down to you or him. -It did.
It was very close. [ Laughter ] -Because he read
that line like -- [ As Samberg ]
It's nice to be with people! [ Laughter ] We were talking backstage.
That's your fiancée, Kirsten Dunst, in the clip.
-That is, yeah. -And you were saying
it's like cheating to get to -- you guys get to work together. -It doesn't seem fair, yeah.
-No. You got to be in New Zealand
and work with your fiancée. -Yeah. You know, I mean,
that was the second time we had worked together
and it just, you know, all of the sort of hard work
is already done for it. You just kind of have
to figure out how to, you know, deal with each other and the
specific characters and -- -It's really nice.
-Yeah. -And then,
outside of working together, you guys added to your family. You had a baby a few --
What, seven months old, now? -Yeah, a seven-month-old baby
that we decided, "Why not? Let's have a pandemic baby."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
You get to spend time together. -Yeah.
-And you got your older one. Is Ennis the older one? -Ennis is the older one.
He's three and a half. Did you experience
any sort of -- any problems with the older
child dealing with the new? -There was one time where,
because we had a two-year gap where the two-year-old walked
across the room and the baby was on the floor and he just fully stepped
on top of it. [ Laughter ]
-Oh, wow. -And like with a big -- And then,
he said it was an accident, but it was on like the Nest Cam,
you know, like the -- [ Laughter ]
and you he just had the most [bleep]-eating grin, like --
-Oh, wow. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. -Accidentally.
-Did you have anything? -Well, we kept waiting
for the other shoe to drop because you hear
these terrible stories of the older kid, you know,
reacting really awfully. And, one night,
we were in our room and our kid runs in and we have the bassinet
next to our bed and he just says,
"I'm going to pee on the floor." [ Laughter ]
We're like, "No, no, no, no. You can't pee on the floor."
He's like -- And I don't think he really had
to pee that bad. It was just to prove a point
and mark his territory. [ Laughter ] And, sure enough, he did, as we were pleading
with him not to. [ Laughter ] And that was kind of it. It was like,
once he had done that... -Wow!
-...he was like, "Alright, my work is done." [ Laughter ] You get it. -At seven months, I feel like,
at this point, there's a personality, right? Like what do you call the baby? [ Laughter ] -We call him Big Kahuna. [ Laughter ]
-Big Kahuna? -Big Kahuna. It's very fitting,
on many levels. He's in the 96th percentile
in weight, so there's that. But he also just has a very
laid-back, easygoing vibe. He's kind of like
a good old boy already in like a seven-month-old
package, yeah. [ Laughter ]
-The Big Kahuna? I love the Big Kahuna. The first time you were here --
speaking of family -- your grandmother was
in the audience. -Yes.
-And, the next time, it was weird because I got
to meet her, which was lovely, and then,
the next time you came, you said she sent
a big Texas howdy, which was very sweet. Did we hear from her? -We did hear from her.
-Okay. -And she wanted me to make sure that I relayed this message
to you. -Okay. -"Mr. Meyers..." -Very nice of her to use. [ Laughter ]
-She's much more formal in text than she is
when she's just talking. -Right.
-She usually calls you old Seth. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] -"Mr. Meyers, just a big
Texas hello from Jesse's granny and to wish you and your family a blessed and wonderful
Thanksgiving," so. [ Audience awws ]
I mean, she's just A1. -Yeah.
-I got no complaints about her at all. Consistently, of all my guests on the show, she's my favorite grandma.
-She's the best granny, yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah.
-Yeah. -Do you see her
for Thanksgiving? -Pretty much most holidays
when we're in Texas. We alternate now because of,
you know. -Yeah.
-Yeah. -And so do you have
big Thanksgiving plans? -We do.
Yeah, we've got the whole -- We've got the whole family, Kirsten's family coming
into Austin and then, for Christmas,
we'll do it all again, yeah. -That's great. This is a beautiful film. Benedict Cumberbatch was here,
talking about it and we've talked in the past. You're a lovely person
in real life. You've played some pretty good
sociopaths over the years. [ Laughter ]
-Thank you.
-Which I think speaks to your acting style,
that, you know, I meet you
and there's an actual light in your eyes, as opposed to some
[ Laughter ] of the people you've played.
-I know how to turn it off. [ Laughter ]
-You know how to turn it off? You are the nicer of the two
brothers in this film. Did you enjoy being
on the other side of it? -It was so nice. It was like a vacation
from playing socio-- playing, you know,
the heavy for a while. And, yeah, just to get to work
with Benedict as well and to see him do something that
he'd never done before. -He told us that he didn't -- that Jane Campion,
the director of this film, asked him not to shower,
so that you could all know what somebody like that
would smell like. [ Laughter ] -Yeah, that was one
of the requests. And, you know, I never really -- I can't say that I noticed,
but we did do some -- I think we discussed earlier
we did some sort of unorthodox rehearsals, where like the first thing
that we did together was we waltzed
to this Elliott Smith song. Like brothers do, you know? [ Laughter ] And that was sort of her way
of getting us very familiar with each other's center,
physicality or -- [ Laughter ]
-I love it.
-And, you know. -It worked.
-I guess it worked. -Yeah.
-Yeah. -The whole time you're watching
the film, you're like, "Those guys know
what each other smells like." [ Laughter ] Doing a Western like this, were Westerns
something you were into and you hope to pass that
down to your boys? -I do. I do hope so.
I grew up watching a film called "Lonesome Dove."
-With Tommy Lee Jones. The best.
-Tommy Lee Jones. -Have you seen it?
-It's the best, yeah. -Okay. I mean, I did try
to show my son the film, but it is six hours long. -It's six hours long
and it's super brutal. -It's super brutal.
My parents thought it was okay for me to start watching that
at like one year old, [ Laughter ]
so I guess I was like, "Well, if it's good enough
for me..." -You waited 'til he was
three and a half. -Yeah.
He wasn't into it. He wasn't into "Lonesome Dove."
-Yeah. -It does seem like
a little advanced for three and a half, yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Not for me, but. I just came out --
-You turned out fine. -Yeah, right?
-Yeah. Well, tell him to toughen up.
You know who's going to like it? The Big Kahuna.
-Big Kahuna's going to love it.
[ Laughter ] -Hey, congratulations
on everything. It's so nice to see you.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you so much
for making time for us. [ Cheering and applause ]
Jesse Plemons. "The Power of the Dog" is out
in select theaters now and available on Netflix
December 1st.
