Don’t bother locking the gates, because Marc Maron is busting them wide open. Since wrapping his signature podcast, WTF With Marc Maron, last fall after a 16-year, 1,686-episode run, the comedian and actor is navigating new career frontiers across myriad genres and multiple forms of media. In other words, reports of his retirement have been greatly exaggerated.
“People got very used to hearing me talk to them directly twice a week,” Maron tells Gold Derby with a grin. “I’ve been getting DMs on social media with some of them saying, ‘I hope you’re enjoying retirement.’ I’m not retired, I’m just having a life — allow me to have a life!”
These days, Maron’s life includes some Emmy campaigning in addition to, you know, working. He’s currently on the awards circuit promoting his latest stand-up special, Panicked, now streaming on HBO Max, as well as the first season of the Apple TV golf comedy Stick, which pairs him with Owen Wilson. And Maron just graced the 2026 Tribeca Festival for the world premiere of the film, In Memoriam, which marks his first role as a big screen leading man. (The movie is currently seeking distribution.)
In this expansive conversation, we spoke with the most definitely not retired ex-podcaster about all three projects and why he’s not a cynic when it comes to awards.
Gold Derby: During the final episodes of WTF you often spoke about how you were looking forward to just having more time. Do you actually find yourself having more time these days?
Marc Maron: Definitely. I’m situated in my life in a way that I haven’t been in a long time, which means I have a lot more time to worry about s–t and wonder if I’m doing enough. [Laughs] But I’m trying to ease up on that; I don’t need to be operating in that space all the time. But I am doing a lot of comedy work and trying to put together a movie that I want to direct early next year, which is coming along. But I also do have time to try and do stuff around the house, spend time with friends, and just go do things. There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t used to do because I was so consumed by work, but I do still find work to do.
Have you missed having that direct connection to your audience at all?
Yeah, sometimes things would happen where I’d be talking on the podcast in a stream of consciousness way, and then I’d think, “Oh, maybe I should work that into a bit.” So I have lost that outlet, and a kind of improvisation in terms of developing material. There was also a discipline to doing that show twice a week and having to send out a weekly update and force myself to play music at the end of each episode. Lately, I’ve found that I have to put myself in a position where I make sure that I’m doing all that stuff creatively. But the other side is that when I do stand-up now, especially in longer sets, is there’s an urgency to it that wasn’t there before. And I like that the audience doesn’t know everything already because of the podcast.
I was thinking about that while watching Panicked — there’s material in the special that I definitely recognized from the podcast, since you taped it before WTF ended.
There’s a certain liability there when people say, “Oh, yeah, I heard this before.” That started to bother me, because my process has always been about improvising, either onstage or in front of a podcast mic. But the way I structure and move through material is by integrating those ideas into longer bits and fleshing them out with throughlines and other stuff. So it’s always been an organic process for me, and I like for it to be a mystery to people because there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into finessing and structuring this stuff.
And I think Panicked is the best special I’ve ever done. The last three specials are really a culmination of the work that I’ve done over the last 40 years in terms of craft, ideas, and things I like to talk about. There was a holistic approach the material that integrated nicely with me moving through things and kind of repairing myself. The whole production was kind of built around that idea, which was very poetic and I think elevated the special a lot. We live in a time when a lot of comedy specials aren’t that special because there are so many of them, but we were able to bring it altogether with this.
What I like about Panicked is the arc you go on from being manic and bottoming out to ultimately finding clarity.
There’s definitely an arc there. Look, it took me two years to really get that set up and together, because I do like to have a throughline. And right up to a day or two before recording, I decided to change the tone of the opening bit, because I didn’t want to come out with the vibe of being strident or self-righteous. I wanted to bring everybody in, and not alienate them by posturing. When I’m doing a special, I’m usually working with 90 minutes of material, and then I try to get it down to, like, 73 minutes. That’s become my number, you know? So I had two weeks to get Panicked down to 73 minutes, and all of a sudden I’m pulling pieces out and fitting things together differently. You always shoot two versions, and both shows I l landed right at 73 minutes with no clock. It was crazy.
Do young comics come to you for advice or is that something you try to avoid whenever possible?
I don’t feel that that I’m being sought out for advice. I think a lot of younger comics may have gleaned a lot from the podcast, and I know it did help people because of what we talked about. They’re also up against a different business than what I was up against. I don’t mind talking about how I feel about what’s necessary or required to be a great comic or chase how you are onstage and build on that, but I can’t really speak to the business side of things.
You haven’t been shy about saying that you’re not thrilled with where the comedy business is going or the identities that comedians have to adopt nowadays.
I just think the platform business is lowering the bar; it’s about creating viral moments for popularity, and that doesn’t necessarily mean the quality of what you’re doing is great or that you’re fundamentally talented or charismatic. I also think it makes comedy less special, because it seems like everybody’s going to take a shot at it. If you’re an old-timer, you believe that it’s a special type of art that starts to diminish in quality in that kind of environment. I mean, the thought that I put into a special like Panicked wouldn’t be required anymore, and in that case, what do we really have? Everything becomes disposable in an hour or two, and I like doing specials that last to a certain degree.
WTF listeners got to follow your evolution as an actor, including landing your role on Stick. The show’s creator, Jason Keller, has said he created the role of Mitts for you specifically. Was that your memory of how he approached you?
Yeah, because I turn down everything instinctively. I’m just like, “I don’t want to do this.” And I always assume that they have someone else in mind, so I’m thinking, “How many people said ‘No’ before you god to me?” But Jason was very insistent, and eventually I believed him. And it is a great part for me; the first season was pretty funny and Owen and I have both gone through our own s–t and are of a certain age where we have this worn spirit. We’ve also dealt with a certain amount of obstacles and a certain amount of grief and that was an interesting dynamic.
It’s funny, because you and Owen aren’t too far apart in age, but Mitts feels like the big brother figure in that relationship.
Yeah, like an older brother or a marriage of sorts. When you work with somebody for years, one of them is going to be bearing the brunt of carrying the weight of the other who is a little more emotionally irresponsible or prone to chaos and self-sabotage. It’s a fairly standard kind of a codependent dynamic for people locked into a professional relationship or just a friendship. There’s this element of my character having to clean up for Owen’s and make sure he’s operating at his best — the sort of good angel on his shoulder.
I know you’re a Robert Altman fan, and the series definitely put me in mind of California Split with Elliot Gould and George Segal.
Oh, yeah, they’re card hustlers, right? That’s a good analogy because there is that down and out element here, only not tragically. Who knows where our character would be if they had to just be golf hustlers! [Laughs]
Stick‘s first season comes to a fairly definitive ending. Did that make you a little concerned when they announced a Season 2?
I always wonder about that with all TV series. It seems like if you close out that first season tightly, maybe you’re done. But I also think a lot of streaming shows have to do it that way, because you don’t know if you’re coming back. There’s no commitment, so it’s all season-to-season and they have to make a complete arc. I didn’t know where we were going to go in Season 2, but Jason told me, “This is where we’re going to go,” and I was liked, “Well, OK, of course — that makes sense.” So that’s the way it went down and now we’ve got Billy Zane and Missi Pyle as part of the cast. Timothy Olyphant also has a bigger part and I get to do a lot of stuff with him. There’s definitely a good, solid arc for Season 2.
If Stick reminded me of California Split, In Memoriam felt very much like a Michael Douglas movie along the lines of Wonder Boys.
I like that comparison! I can only aspire to be as good as Michael Douglas, but then again I think I am probably a lot like Michael Douglas. [Laughs]
We should say that you play an actor who learns he’s got terminal cancer and sets about trying to secure a spot in the In Memoriam reel at the Oscars. I have to admit that I expected something more satirical, but the movie is quite different than that.
Yeah, I don’t know that I ever saw it as a satire, and I don’t know that I could have acted it that way. I was very insecure about taking on that role, but the director, Rob Burnett, was confident and I decided that I had nothing to lose except my feelings and emotions! I think the movie packs a very emotional punch, and it seems that when people see it, it affects them deeply. So that’s not nothing, and I think the comedy in it holds up pretty well.
Was there a particular scene that you were especially nervous about shooting?
There’s a scene with Sharon Stone that was nerve-racking, but I showed up to work and we gotthrough it. The stuff with Talia Ryder who plays my character’s estranged daughter was very important and needed to work for the movie to work. There’s a scene in the film where she’s telling me that she doesn’t want me to die and Rob told me that if the scene didn’t land, we didn’t have a movie. So there was a lot hanging in the balance there, but I’m proud of the work I did with her. It was a matter of opening up and letting those emotions happen — and they came for both of us.
Did the film make you think about how you hope to be remembered and what awards ultimately mean to you?
I find that I generally have given up on winning awards — I don’t seem to win them! [Laughs] Actually, that’s not true; Panicked won a WGA Award and that was a real honor. It was the first legit award I’ve ever won in my career, and I didn’t expect it. People always say that awards don’t mean anything, but I think they do. They do to me. I put a lifetime of work into that special, and I know it’s the best thing I’ve done. But it’s also nice to know you were appreciated by your peers.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
