The Bingeworthy boys, Mike DeAngelo, and Playlist Editor-in-Chief Rodrigo Perez, are back to talk about all of the TV news and shows that are worth your time. This week finds us discussing the big Paramount investor day presentation news and digging into the depths of HBO Max to uncover a hidden gem of a show called “Painting with John.”
After the news breakdown, John Lurie himself stops by to discuss his career and the second season of “Painting with John,” which begins on HBO Max this Friday, February 18. During his chat with Rodrigo Perez, John —a renaissance man artist who acts, directs, writes, and makes music— confesses that he never intended for “Painting with John” to be a show in the first place.
“I didn’t pitch it — that was the nice thing about it. My TV shows; they were both accidents. Lurie said, referring to both “Painting with John” and his IFC show “Fishing with John.” About “Fishing With John,” Lurie’s now-famous cult fishing show that starred the likes of Willem Dafoe, Dennis Hopper, and previous film collaborators like Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch (while he was a successful musician in the 1980s, it was his appearance in Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise” that kicked off an equally unexpected movie career). There was always a rumored season two that never came to pass. Lurie confirmed he had tried and even had set up an episode with famous Italian actor/director Roberto Benigni, whom he co-starred together with in Jarmusch’s “Down By Law.” Still, the intended collaboration fell through due to shabby producers who let the scheduling fall apart.
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As to how the show came together, kind of on a lark.
“I didn’t really want somebody filming me painting, but I was doing this technique, and we started teasing each other, and it was funny, so [Lurie’s longtime assistant and now collaborator Nesrin Wolf] wanted to put them on Instagram… And then Adam [McKay] said, ‘Do you mind if I send this to HBO?’ And everybody knows who Adam McKay is, but I didn’t know. Can I trust this guy? Who is he? But [Lurie’s musician brother] Evan [Lurie] had worked with him on “Saturday Night Live,” and [Steve] Buscemi knew him and said, ‘No, he’s a great guy, you can trust him.’ So, he sends it off to HBO and was like, ‘They want it!’ And I was like, ‘What?!” Said Lurie.
The career-spanning interview details many high and low points of Lurie’s career, including his relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat, his days as a musician, and his multiple debilitating illnesses, which led him to pick up painting again and take it seriously as a creative outlet.
“I had always been painting but not seriously, and then I got sick and was stuck at home and was just painting for no reason at all, and I started to get better and better and then was like, ‘Oh! Painting could be what music was.’ And that took about a year before that happened.” Lurie shared.
You can listen to the entire deep-dive episode & conversation, which includes music provided by John Lurie himself, below:
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