Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

Wicked Producer Speaks Out! Hollywood Antisemitism & Fighting for Representation with Marc Platt
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Marc Platt: [00:00:00] There's a great power, particularly in cinema, to communicate to people something they might not otherwise want to hear.

Jonah Platt: If you don't want to answer the next question, I understand.

Marc Platt: One of the most upsetting

Jonah Platt: aspects of

Marc Platt: October 7th has been silence or even abandonment.

Jonah Platt: My guest today is a living example of the classic American dream story.

His grandfather came to America as a Russian immigrant without a high school education. His father served in the Navy and slowly worked his way up the ladder of corporate America. And he turned a law degree into a 40 year career in entertainment, during which he has shepherded some of the biggest cultural touchstones of our generation.

He's a two time Emmy winner, three time Golden Globe winner, three time Tony winner, and four time Academy Award nominee for Best Picture. He's a Jewish philanthropist of the highest order. Sings a beautiful Hodu. Survives on pizza, protein bars, and Diet Coke. And at 67 years old, still runs at least a 5K every morning.

Also, he's my dad. Ladies and gentlemen, the most [00:01:00] honest man in showbiz, Mark Platt.

Marc Platt: Hey, Jonah.

Jonah Platt: Hi, Dad. Thanks for coming.

Marc Platt: I couldn't be happier being here talking to you.

Jonah Platt: Thank you. It's a

Marc Platt: great thrill for me.

Jonah Platt: Me too. I want to start by talking about the Academy Awards, which happened just last week. You've been dozens of times throughout your career.

What was unique about this last experience for you?

Marc Platt: I was fortunate enough that the film that I produced, Wicked, part one, had so many nominated colleagues in attendance, as well as my director. And it's been such a long journey having all of us together at that evening was a culmination. of what had been a very long, but very joyful journey.

So to share it with everyone was very special. And, uh, having been a good number of times, felt also another kind of culmination of many years of, of work and being, uh, a member of a community that I know very well. And, and it was, it was a very gratifying, uh, warm, fun evening.

Jonah Platt: [00:02:00] That's great to hear. Most people probably assume you're disappointed having not won the award for best picture, but I don't think you are.

Can you speak on that?

Marc Platt: I'm the guy who won an Oscar for a minute and 47 seconds and had to give it back. Yeah, at least you didn't have to

Jonah Platt: go through that this time. Right,

Marc Platt: for the film La La Land. Well, one of the things you learn when you've been in making movies for so long is that the real joy is in the journey of the making of, and if it's not, you're in the wrong business.

It's really hard and very arduous. and very time consuming and takes a lot out of you emotionally, creatively, physically. I mark my victories and my experiences by whether or not they were journeys that I enjoyed making. And in the case of Wicked, it was such a gratifying experience. It was everything I hoped and dreamed it could be.

I waited 20 years to make the film, as you know, from when I first produced it on Broadway. And yet, it [00:03:00] still, it took me beyond my wildest imagination. In this instance, I got so much incoming communication from people saying, thank you for making this film. It seemed like a film people wanted or maybe needed at this time.

In what way? There was joy in it. I think there was hopefulness in it. I think folks felt transported to another world. And for all of us, Oz means someplace over the rainbow. And Um, even though our Oz has some darkness underneath it, I think there's aspirational qualities to it, to see a character speak.

Uh, truth to power as the character Elphaba does and to make choices that are tough. And so it just felt like an entertainment, a cinematic experience that was, was really needed and wanted at the time.

Jonah Platt: I speak at length about the awards in the monologue that precedes this episode, but I want to just ask you from your experience, how did it feel to be in the room?

[00:04:00] When No Other Land, the Palestinian Israeli documentary, won the award. You know, what was that experience?

Marc Platt: I had anticipated that that film would win, and so I was somewhat braced for it. I haven't seen the film, so it's unfair for me to comment on the merits of the film. Sure. It's always, uh, challenging when the, when awards come with, with politics because, particularly in Middle Eastern politics, it's so hard to reduce the complications and nuances of any conflict to a two minute speech.

Yeah. Or a two minute advocacy for something. There was a little balance to it, I think, but it was slightly uncomfortable just in the Um, the putting forth of points of view where one didn't have the opportunity to say, I understand this point, but there's also this point, and there's that point, and that's indicative of, of so much in our world today, which is very [00:05:00] extreme on one side or the other.

Jonah Platt: Yeah. Now I want to go back to the beginning and let my audience know a little bit about Mark the man. You were raised in a very Jewish part of Baltimore. Uh, conservative Jewish family. To use your phrase that you use with me a lot in storytelling, what would you say is the tree trunk of your Jewish identity?

Marc Platt: The tree trunk for me is indeed family, but, uh, under that umbrella of what I mean by family is not just the commitment to family, your own family, but commitment to the larger family. of your community or our community and a commitment to the values, the Jewish values that I was taught by my mom and dad, your grandparents that found their way into our family life, into our daily life.

And, um, hopefully as we grew and went out into the world, into all the different corners of our lives, those values and that sense of family. So [00:06:00] family first and foremost, um, and I try and run my company, uh, my films, my productions, all as families as well, and have infused that kind of feeling of belonging and community and also integrity and honesty.

Jonah Platt: What are some of your earliest, warmest Jewish memories? Like what pops into your mind?

Marc Platt: Shabbat would be probably the first thing. We always had a Shabbat dinner around the table. My dad traveled a lot and he would often be gone from Mondays through Thursdays. So Fridays. It felt special because it was Shabbat, but also because dad was coming home and the warmth of the evening, my mom lighting candles and having a prayer that she would recite in English.

I don't know where she got it from, but it became a prayer that she would recite every Friday. And now you all know that prayer. In fact, you took that prayer and put it in a, with a photo of my mom and my family [00:07:00] gave it to each of us. So. The, the meals, the sitting around and not rushing through dinner and talking about our week, what we'd each done during the week, so that's probably the warmest memory.

Jonah Platt: Do you remember the experience of your bar mitzvah?

Marc Platt: I do remember my bar mitzvah.

Jonah Platt: What was that, what did it feel like for you?

Marc Platt: I liked to perform a little when I was a kid. Yeah? So it was a little bit of that, sort of getting to get up and and read and sing in front of the congregation. It's something that I took to kind of easily.

And so I actually enjoyed it very much and remember that. And remember, uh, the rabbi speaking to me and the smiles on my mom and dad's faces and how proud they were in my older brother and my younger sister. And, um, those were meaningful experiences for us. And, um, and we looked forward to them for a long time and because we were so Because faith was so central to our upbringing and family, they were very [00:08:00] meaningful experiences.

Jonah Platt: When you say faith, do you mean just sort of the religiosity and ritual around Judaism, or do you mean a connection to God specifically? I

Marc Platt: think both. I think in my family growing up, there was the traditions and ritual that were the fabric of our life. Holidays, Hanukkah, Passover, celebrating them as a family.

But I also think that as the years went by, We became a bit more faith based, more religious as we grew up. As my brother and I got involved in youth groups and, and, um, other activities at the synagogue, we started to attend synagogue more regularly as a family. And became, um, our kashrut, I think, increased as we got older.

Trips to Israel in high school, I think. Made us more religious. There was a time in my life where I wore a kippah all the time. Really? I didn't know that. Yes, it lasted about five or six weeks. But, but I'd come back from Israel and I was trying to recreate that experience. But it did lead me to a [00:09:00] spirituality, which I certainly has increased as I've gotten older through time, that is more about faith.

And my, my parents also, which is, you know, very much instilled in us as part of our faith and our ritual Tikkun Olam, which is repairing the world. We always were taught, but we also learned by example. That we just didn't have the right to help other communities, we had the obligation to, and that's something I, has stuck with me my whole life.

When I was a young kid, my mom would sometimes ask my brother and I around the holiday of Hanukkah to go look at the toys we didn't use anymore. And we'd collect them, and my mom would take us down to the city, the children's hospital in Baltimore, which was not in a great neighborhood. Baltimore was a, somewhat of a segregated city in the 60s where I lived.

And we would not just drop off the toys, my mom would [00:10:00] take us to the ward, and we'd give out The toys to the Children, many young kids of color from different communities than ours. But that was an extension of what we were supposed to do. And and so I learned that from I must have been five or six years old when we did that.

The importance of giving to others and being inclusive.

Jonah Platt: What did you get out of that other than sort of the knowledge that that was important?

Marc Platt: The joy of just giving. Not for the headline of it. In fact, the greatest mitzvah is to give without anybody knowing what you're doing. Just the joy, you know, to see another child who has a different life, not as privileged as mine, in a hospital ward.

Smile with joy to take a gift when your six year old kid leaves, you know, a real impression on your soul. It, it, it really speaks to you. One of the best summers I had was I went back to that hospital when I [00:11:00] was in between my 7th and 8th grade year, I think of, and I volunteered at the summer at this hospital with kids from broken homes.

Kids who had come from abusive homes and therefore had to be in a hospital, many foster kids, and it was a marvelous summer. I, I learned to be a producer there. I produced Color Wars, and I made a film for the hospital. Must have been 14 of our experiences there. So it's something my mom and dad really imparted to me, and they did the same.

My dad would come home and go to something called the Hebrew Free Loan. Association, which was for folks in small businesses in the city of Baltimore that needed income or needed investment in their businesses or in their family. And there'd be money set aside by the community just for that. And he would volunteer and go and be on that committee and help disperse.

The funds and it was just part of who we were growing up.

Jonah Platt: You [00:12:00] mentioned being in Baltimore in the 60s, segregation of, of the different communities. I, I remember you telling me that you also saw, you know, no blacks, no Jews, no dogs sign growing up. Where, where was that?

Marc Platt: So there was an amusement park in Baltimore called Gwynn Oak Amusement Park.

Which, I think, uh, the fictionalized version of that is in the um, Waters film, John Waters film, Hairspray, film Hairspray, I think. Baltimore, in the 60s, was a very segregated city, as I recall. My mom took us, uh, to that amusement park when I was very, very young. So it must have been the very early, early 60s.

To see a sign that said, No Jews, No Blacks, although there was another term used for that. Mm. That we weren't allowed to say. And no dogs allowed. And, um, so that we would understand the world we were living in wasn't inclusive and didn't accept everyone. And [00:13:00] that it was our fight to not only be accepted for ourselves, but for others as well.

My folks took us on marches, protests, from civil rights to Soviet Jewry when we were trying to get Jews out of the Soviet Union. And so that was a big part of our effort.

Jonah Platt: All in Baltimore?

Marc Platt: All in Baltimore. When Martin Luther King was shot, I remember exactly where I was killed. I remember the look on my mom's face when she found out, and the sort of shock of it all.

It provoked riots on a lot of the East Coast cities. Baltimore was one of those cities. And after the riots, my mom and dad insisted that we drive downtown and see the destruction that had occurred to understand where that sadness and anger had come from and to start to think about how to help to rebuild.

What had been destroyed in that sad time. How often do you think about your parents? I think about my mom and dad every day. Yeah. There's, every day there isn't [00:14:00] some moment that goes by where Sue and Howard aren't on my shoulder. Or, uh, or I think about how much I miss them, or, um, I wish they could be here watching and seeing.

And often when I'm with the grandkids, or your kids. I think how much joy they would have had from seeing these wonderful

Jonah Platt: kids.

Marc Platt: So you mentioned you went

Jonah Platt: to Israel in high school.

Marc Platt: Tell me about that experience. I went two summers in a row in between 10th between 11th and 12th. Once with USY, which is a youth conservative youth group.

for seven weeks, and then once with the Baltimore Hebrew College, which is a Hebrew high school that I went to, that had an Ulpan program, where I studied immersive Hebrew. Wow. And then traveled for three weeks. And, for many reasons, I found those experiences somewhat life changing. I was there in between the Six Day War and the 1973 war.

I was

Jonah Platt: about to ask, because I figured this must have been early 70s. Right between the

Marc Platt: two wars, and it was a, you know, very different time, [00:15:00] where Um, Israel as a country had been besieged so so many times and attacked so many times and was still growing and emerging as a country and so it was exciting to be there.

And we also spent many, we spent on both trips. We would go into Israeli Arab communities. I remember once we played basketball with, uh, in Arab community and then had conversation with high school kids. That's cool. So one had the sense even back then, the need to start young and to, to, to build bridges between, uh, communities.

I came back from Israel my second time in August, 1973. And had spent a week in the Sinai Desert, which was then under the, um, Israel. Israel. Right, before. When Egypt raised its hand and said, we will have peace, Israel gave back the land. Right. Which they were always willing, had been always willing to do when there was a true peace.

But between those two wars, Sinai Peninsula [00:16:00] was under Israel's jurisdiction. So they had to climb Mount Sinai. I tell you that because the folks who took us Where our leaders for that five day excursion into the desert were from the tank group that was the first tank group into the Sinai I know this because I remember driving by in a truck and the leader of our truck Screamed to a friend of his who was driving by in Hebrew, but I understood at the time don't tell anybody I'm taking a few days off here, but four weeks later.

They were all killed in in the incursion When the, in the initial Yom Kippur war, when we weren't prepared because Yom Kippur, there was a lot of casualties in the first 24 hours and that tank group was one of the major casualties. So, when I came home in 1972 in August. It was a week before the Munich Olympics.

And so I remember watching the Munich Olympics live when the Palestinian terrorists took Israeli [00:17:00] hostages, the athletes, and then murdered them all. Yeah. And I remember watching it live, watching Jim McKay. It was a famous sports announcer on A B C. Walking us through the moments of that was like watching reality TV for the first time.

This is 1972 So it's interesting that in that time period I think my return home such Significant events occurred that it yeah into my into into my experiences and then I went back again Uh, between my junior and senior year of college and spent four weeks in the kibbutz at Neve Yam, which was on, which was in the north, was on the ocean, which is one of the reasons why I went to go and I washed dishes and I got up at four in the morning.

and brought chickens, live chickens, which I didn't quite enjoy. I had to take them and put them on crates and trucks when they were taken to market. So I had the full experience. That's

Jonah Platt: amazing. Going back to the Munich Olympics, what was the feeling in America, in the [00:18:00] diaspora, watching that?

Marc Platt: It was unbelievably sad and tragic, even, again, putting politics aside, to be an athlete, to go to an Olympic.

In Germany, you know, not that long after the Holocaust and to have, you know, be taken from your room and then ultimately murdered, um, was unthinkable. It was really a stomach punch.

Jonah Platt: How would you compare that experience to the October 7th experience?

Marc Platt: I mean, similar in some ways, just the brutality of it and the unthinkable nature of it.

I think October 7th, just because of, of the nature of the events that occurred on that day were so, so brutal and so evil, regardless again, of anybody's politics of anything that we were living in that in real time, not as it was happening, discovering hour by hour, exactly what had happened. Because your mom is the head of, of [00:19:00] JFNA, we were in a wedding in Maine and we drove to New York.

It was Saturday, wedding was Saturday night. We drove to New York. And from Saturday night, really for the next 48 hours, we were on zooms. Your mom was, I was listening to Israel as things were unfolding and more and more information was coming in. That was hard to fathom, only to be followed by the, you know, soon thereafter reaction of people.

Again, regardless of politics, the ability to say people got what they deserved, you know, no, nobody deserves that on whatever side of anything you're

Jonah Platt: on. We're going to talk more about that subject and the reaction over the past 18 months, but before we get there, I want to finish a little bit of the trajectory of your life.

Sure. Where did your love of musical theater come from?

Marc Platt: I was a musical kid. I liked music and my mom and dad nourished that. piano lessons and some community [00:20:00] theaters. And my mom would take me to the symphony, learn classical music, which I enjoyed. And, and music was just part of our, uh, it's just part of my every day.

And so I really had an appreciation for it. Um, and I came to understand that what I love most about music. is that it has no filter to our, you know, we don't intellectualize music. You can if you know a lot about it. Right. But it just seeps into you and it has, it can be very unifying. Mm. And as someone who loves community, music is still, to this day, in a very extreme world, very unifying.

And I came to appreciate musical storytelling because I liked the emotion that it communicated as much as the story. And that I could feel what a character was, yearning for, or feeling sad about, or happy. And I just had an intuition for that kind of storytelling.

Jonah Platt: Most people probably don't know this, but you were quite the musical theater performer yourself back in your [00:21:00] day.

In high school. In high school. You starred as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. I did. As the MC in Cabaret. I

Marc Platt: did. I was quite brilliant.

Jonah Platt: I've seen the photos. You look great. Yeah.

Marc Platt: Again, I loved the performing. I loved being part of a big community. Um, I directed some shows in high school. Right, Bye Bye Birdie? I directed Bye Bye Birdie in high school, which was the faculty and the students.

And, you know, I loved that kind of thing and felt, felt capable and comfortable and like it was part of who I was, what I was supposed to be doing.

Jonah Platt: Okay, so then you go to college at UPenn, where you meet my mom. How much was Jewish life part of your college experience, if at all?

Marc Platt: It was a, a decent part of it.

There was a very active Hillel, wonderful Hillel, which I would go to, not all the time. But occasionally your mom went all the time. There was your mom, so that was a big part of it for me, since we started dating in college.

Jonah Platt: Speaking of both Hillel and mom, why don't you tell us the story of your proposal?

Which was a very Jewish proposal.

Marc Platt: You've done your homework even though you're my son and you know all [00:22:00] these stories.

Jonah Platt: So,

Marc Platt: I took her as we went to Hillel on Friday nights. And I waited for the L'chad Odi prayer, which is the welcoming of the Sabbath bride. And in front of all her friends, in the middle of the service, in the middle of L'chad Odi, I got down on one knee.

And I asked your mom if she would marry

Jonah Platt: me. What happened to the service? Did it stop? She said she needed

Marc Platt: to think about it for a while. No, I'm kidding. She was very happy. Of course. No, everybody, everybody, what happened? Did it come to a standstill? No, it didn't come to a standstill. The service continued.

Your mom? Put on the ring, and she was very happy, and then she sat back down. And she went back to the service, and I said, I think we should, I, we just got engaged. I think we should mark the moment and go home. Also, I had all her friends. At our apartment waiting for us. Oh, nice. Champagne surprise.

Jonah Platt: Nice. So, you worked, uh, as an executive at a lot of different companies.

Orion, TriStar, Universal, lots of amazing projects you got to work on. What's helped keep you grounded [00:23:00] and honest in what is, you know, a notoriously shallow, cutthroat business?

Marc Platt: Well, first of all, I had a strong sense of self and what, how I wanted to be. And I just, you know, your grandparents instilled in me and your grandparents and your mom a very strong moral barometer of, of, of what is right and what is wrong.

What's most important for me is to sleep well at night and I, and so I, I have to walk a certain path, feel good about myself and my actions. And if I ever even would veer. one inch out of the path, there was your mom there to sort of slap me around and say, that's not happening. And I think we kept each other grounded in that way.

So I, I loved what I did as an executive and opportunity to meet some of the great filmmakers of our time and, and writers and have impact on making so many films. But I was always excited to come home, particularly on Friday [00:24:00] nights and be with the family. That was always my center.

Jonah Platt: So speaking of projects you got to work on with great people that made an impact, I know a real watershed moment for you in your career was the film Philadelphia.

Why was that story so important? And, and what did it mean to you to be a part of getting it told?

Marc Platt: There's a great power, particularly in cinema, when you do something right, or satisfying, I should say, there's a great power in the ability to communicate to people something they might not otherwise want to hear.

Or might not otherwise understand, even to change their point of view. I started a company, Orion, that had a long history of making films that changed the point of view of people, or tried to, and all different issues. I also had developed a very close relationship with a wonderful director by name of Jonathan Demme, who sadly is no longer with us.

Um, who became a dear friend in the early days. I [00:25:00] was the executive on movies like Married to the Mob and Something Wild and then Silence of the Lambs for which he won the Oscars best. director, wasn't Jewish at all. In fact, his politics were probably very, very, very far left of mine. But he was a humanist and he loved community and he loved humans.

They love people. And you can see that in all of his films. After Simon's the Lambs in the late eighties, there was a terrible plague in the world called AIDS. More and more. In those days, uh, you'd wake up and find someone you knew had passed. And it was, um, a real taboo subject. And Jonathan, uh, after Signs of the Lambs, we were talking and, uh, the question was, what do we do next?

And I knew that he had the clout as a director and someone that stars wanted to work with and was well respected that he could tell a story about this disease and put a face on it as well as the underlying [00:26:00] homophobia and that I could get that movie made with him as the director. And that, in short fashion, gave way to the film Philadelphia.

Which was inspired by actually a good number of cases, um, where lawyers had sued their law firms or others for discrimination, for being fired, for being afflicted with, with AIDS. There were, were

Jonah Platt: a number of those stories. Were you already aware of that screenplay, or was let's go find one? No, no, we developed it.

We developed

Marc Platt: it. It was developed. By a wonderful screenwriter named Ron Niswaner, who's still a dear friend. He's queer and had lost someone, or a number of people, to the disease. We developed it, started Orion, then it moved to TriStar, and we brought the project with us. And when the script was ready, um, the Sony Corporation, which is a Japanese corporation, wasn't too excited and put a lot of parameters.

around the cost of the movie, had to be movie stars and said we know we want there to be humor in it even though it wasn't a humorous subject [00:27:00] which led us to, um, to go to Tom Hanks and Tom and I had just done a movie called Sleepless in Seattle, some of which was shot in Baltimore. Right. Your grandmother and your sister were extras in it.

Jonah Platt: Characters are named Sam and Jonah.

Marc Platt: That's correct. I have an abstract for you. Late great Nora Ephron. I'd offered Tom the role that was eventually portrayed by Denzel Washington. Interesting. And it was Tom who called and said, I love the script, but I want to play the Andrew Beckett character. And then it was Jonathan who said, the great actor out there is Denzel Washington.

So went to Denzel and Denzel signed on. This might sound sort of crazy, but I, I believe at that time was one of the first, certainly for Denzel, one of the first projects that wasn't written for a man of color, for a black man that was. Offered to a bla I mean, often times, and back in those years, the characters that folks of color got to play were stories about folks This was a story about a lawyer who was homophobic and ended up [00:28:00] representing a gay attorney wrongfully fired, and they found common ground through their both their love of the law and the constitution and equal rights under the law.

And my favorite scene in that movie, which was shot at Penn, My alma mater, is the two of them sitting at a desk. It was shot actually in the Furness building, which is In the law library? It's not in the law library. It was actually shot in the Furness, which is the fine arts library, but it was made to be a law library.

And it's the two of them reading the, um, the Constitution to each other, and the camera rises up, and you feel them make a connection. And everything about that movie encapsulated so much that I But it's the thing that I did professionally that if it were done well could also do all the other things I like to do, which is create community, repair the world, help others in need, be inclusive.

And then the [00:29:00] film came out and was very successful. And in many parts of the world, particularly in Asia, where literally being gay, you were in the closet, let alone. It literally brought cultures out of the closet. And so it was financially successful. It was artistically successful, but more significantly, it did what great films have the power to do, which is to change minds, put a face on a disease and make people feel they belonged.

It was a film in which, uh, there were actors who were afflicted with AIDS who played healthy characters. And there were characters who were healthy actors who played folks afflicted with AIDS. There were a number of authentic AIDS victims. I remember one of them, when he died, asked to be buried in his wardrobe.

Wow. From the film Philadelphia. And the most significant thing were the letters that I got, particularly from moms with lost sons, thanking us for the movie.

Jonah Platt: Wow. At what point did you ever, did you become [00:30:00] aware that you have tended to gravitate in your career towards underdog stories?

Marc Platt: It goes back to seeing a sign that said, no Jews, no blacks, no dogs.

Mm. I always have felt that the films I've cared the most about are gravitated to, while not always specifically Jewish in terms of characters, uh, tried to put forth the values. That I learned and were comfortable with. That's not a, it's not an accident. It's an extension of me. And, um, the more you become creative.

So when you're an executive, you're somewhat creative, but you're tasked with the business side as well. And then when you're a producer, you were much more creative. You're generating the ideas, you're working with filmmakers and actors and et cetera, and you can really drive something creatively. It's an extension of me, and it's the same story I tell over and over.

Right. Really. I mean, no matter the genre, you can [00:31:00] look at Philadelphia, which I was very involved in the development of that. I've used that formula many times. That formula

Jonah Platt: being the underdog story, or not? The

Marc Platt: underdog is part of it. And the other part of it is two people who are completely different.

That when the story begins, you can't imagine how they'd ever make a

Jonah Platt: connection.

Marc Platt: And they do. And I've been telling that story long before social media threw our world into such extreme

Jonah Platt: Obviously, Wicked is a prime example of that. Wicked's a prime example. What's another example of that?

Marc Platt: Wicked, just to elaborate a bit, is exactly that.

Yeah, That's where I got the structure from Philadelphia. Oh, wow. Is a green girl who's an outsider, a privileged Glinda who's from the upper uplands, who's popular but for all the wrong reasons, and they find, and they learn to see each other for who they really are. and make a connection, and when they do it they end up changing the world.

Right. Legally Blonde is a comedy, but I saw it as an outsider story. This girl who [00:32:00] seems to have everything except she has no self worth. And people think she's not intelligent. And she longs to belong in that regard, and she finds her own community by, by recognizing her intellect and her value as a person.

Mm hmm. I had the live action version of How to Train Your Dragon. And it's very similar stories why I gravitate towards the father who says, his father is the chief of a Vikings tribe that kills dragons. And his son says, I'm, I don't want to be, I can't kill dragons. I see the world differently. And the father says, and you're not my son.

And how they ultimately come together and how they change the world. Same story.

Jonah Platt: Okay. So I want to talk about a difficult period in your life around the time of Philadelphia, early nineties. Terrible tragedy strikes in our family. The infant son of our cousin drowns, tragically. I remember his older siblings sleeping at our house.

And it was the first time I was ever really [00:33:00] exposed to grief, or mourning, or Shiva. And it was a really difficult time for you. What did that loss mean to you, and how did it change your relationship to life and death and God?

Marc Platt: Well, it was a very traumatic experience. You're correct. I'll go back one story before that was I had become close to cousins of yours as a young married man.

I met your cousins from Sweden. Mm hmm. A lovely couple who we became very close to, as you know, who had two kids. Their oldest kid was born with a tumor on his spine and ended up the summer that I was studying for the bar exam in New York coming to New York Hospital for what was then unprecedented laser surgery.

It was just the beginnings of that. Very, very risky. And the initial prognosis after his surgery was that he was cured. He started to walk again because he'd been in a wheelchair from the tumor. And then a year later, the tumor grew back. And I was there at New York Hospital. The [00:34:00] doctor came in and told your His father, your cousin, Torsten, that there's nothing they can do.

And so he, he died. His name was Jonah. And you embody the spirit of this kid beautifully, I might add. That traumatized me as well, and the pain of any child being in any kind of, of pain, which takes me back to that visit to the hospital my mom took when I was five years old, is always something that's very traumatic for me.

Yeah. You know it because I get, with your kids, if I have, somebody's crying, it, It, it, it ignites something in me. So that drowning was horrific for us and mom and I had to step up because your cousins were understandably inconsolable and struggling. I took your little cousin to say goodbye to their brother, um, in the hospital before they took him off life support.

And that night I brought them home and that's when we all slept in the same bed [00:35:00] together. It made my faith so much stronger because there are certain things in life that we can never answer and we never will. There's no logic to them. That's what faith is. Sure. Faith is believing in things you can't see and you can't understand.

My dear friend who I went to college with who's been on your show, David Wolpe, Mm hmm. Came to the house of mourning and he said the following which has stuck with me ever since. There is a randomness in the world. There is an order and the reason there's a randomness is because we can't live in a world where only good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people because if only good things happen to good people then you'd only do good for the quid pro quo of the good things that will come back

Jonah Platt: to you.

Marc Platt: And then there wouldn't be any true goodness, any real altruism in the world, any divine [00:36:00] quality of of true goodness. Right. And that was a great source of comfort to me. It is one of the things that drew me to Wicket, initially. Because the book, the novel Wicket, by Gregor McGuire, is literally, you know, it's a great fairy tale and a reframing of Frank Baum.

It's a study of the nature of good and evil, good and wickedness, and what makes someone truly good, or someone truly wicked. So that experience had a tremendous impact on me, but it brought me closer in my faith.

Jonah Platt: I don't know that I would necessarily expect that.

Marc Platt: I understand that. Um, And you know, as you know, I'm now in a point in life where, where people do get sick and leave us.

Always too soon. And I find more comfort in In my faith and in my relationship and conversations with God.

Jonah Platt: So at age 40, you become a producer, like you always wanted to be from the beginning. [00:37:00] Which I think about as a great lesson to people who are, you know, grinding away in a career. That it might not be until you're 40 that you Get that you just have to keep going at it.

How did you stay patient and confident that you would get to where you were trying to be?

Marc Platt: Some career advice I always give out is really be honest with yourself as to what your joy is. And that's very different for different people. For some people, it's having a significant title and being high up in a company.

For some people, it's making a lot of money. For some people, it's being on a movie set and sitting with a writer for eight hours or being in an editing room. Like, be honest about that. And Be prepared when a left turn comes that you weren't thinking about and really consider whether that's a door, a turn you want to take, because I've had some of those, and I start, I always thought I was going to be a producer on Broadway, live my life in New York City, and I took a left turn to L.

A. And mom and I thought, let's try it for a year. And that was, I don't know, [00:38:00] 30 Right before I was born. Yeah. So, 37, 38 years ago.

Jonah Platt: You're so old. I know.

Marc Platt: That makes me really old. We're getting up there. And so, I knew what I wanted to do, but opportunities kept coming out of the blue that I didn't see as the endgame, but I did see as This is going to continue to help me to get to where I want to go.

By the time I became a producer, I was ready. I was hungry for it. And I remember going into my office the first, I'd been president of three studios. I had all the trimmings of being a president of a movie studio, et cetera. Uh, when you're a buyer, when you're the head of a studio, Everybody's calling you every day.

Everybody wants to talk to you, sell to you. Right. Get their clients to work for you. And then when you become a producer, literally, the next morning, your phone won't ring. And I was, but I was so prepared for that. Yeah. That part of what I [00:39:00] wanted and looked forward to was building a new, a career, an extension micro, but the new chapter, brick by brick.

And the first day I started, I had one employee, my, my office manager, Joey Levy. And me. Shout out to Joey. And we were in like half of a bungalow, not even a full bungalow, and we built a company brick by brick, and, uh, with many great colleagues who I ended up hiring and mentoring, and I knew what I wanted to do, and I was never gonna not do it, and it just came to me that moment in my life where

Jonah Platt: the opportunity arose.

We've talked a lot about Wicked, which, you know, is a generational achievement in conversation for greatest of all time in its medium. You don't get a lot of those. What does it feel like to be the guy who produced one of the most successful, longest running, beloved musicals of all time?

Marc Platt: Feels pretty good.

It's very gratifying. You, it, it, it, it's, it, Wicked is something I loved from the beginning, [00:40:00] as you know, because you were a young kid and I, Come home from readings and put on tapes in the car. I was at those readings when I was like, you know,

Jonah Platt: freshman in high school. Yeah.

Marc Platt: I love what the story was about.

It's very interesting, but, you know, that was early in my producing career, and I always felt very strongly that it was an extension of my Jewishness, that story. It's about tolerance. It's about being another. It's metaphor is about a leader coming in and blaming the underrepresented for the ills of society.

Mm hmm. And this was written 20 some years ago. Right. With the metaphor in Wicked being the animal culture. Yeah. And animals being silenced. And the writers look back at history and a lot at the Holocaust. And we talked about the Holocaust a lot. And the fascism in Germany. And how that came to be when we were creating Wicked.

It's what Gregory Maguire was doing in his novel.

Jonah Platt: Right.

Marc Platt: It's only as history keeps repeating itself over and over that if you went to see the film or the musical [00:41:00] Wicked today you might think it was written about the world we live in today.

Jonah Platt: I think that's part of what's made it so successful.

Marc Platt: And I always felt it was about doing good.

Repairing the world, speaking truth to power when it's not popular. Uh, standing up and saying this is what's right and this is what's wrong. Again, these, to me, were all Jewish values. Mm hmm. It's about the social construct that is evil or prejudice. You can be anything and odds. You can be differently abled.

You can be big, tall, small. You just can't be green. And it's completely arbitrary on purpose, because the nature of prejudice is a social construct. We, society, somehow creates. You are different, and therefore you're less than, somehow. You can never predict when something's gonna become a phenomenon.

Anybody who says that, I just don't, I don't see it. I thought it was gonna be a good entertainment, and I thought it would have a, a nice run initially, but the fact that it [00:42:00] became embraced by generations isn't something I accounted for. I, I don't think about it that much, because, I don't know, I'm always, I never read my press, so to speak.

But I'm, it's a very satisfying feeling to know that people, something you've spent so much time on and that so much of what's inside you is in those characters. And that story is so embraced by the world and that people's lives have been changed, hopefully for the better and for good, for having that experience.

Either in the theater or on in the

Jonah Platt: film. Yeah. There's a line in Wicked that I think about a lot and have been thinking about a lot actually, since October 7th. Speaking of the timelessness of it, the truth is not a thing of fact or reason. The truth is just what everyone agrees on. Very prescient, kind of timeless words.

When you hear that in, in the context of today, where does your head go?

Marc Platt: Just how incredibly and sadly relevant that is. You know, it's part of why we're in such a [00:43:00] conundrum, why there is so much hatred and extremism. People will believe what they want to believe. They don't want to stop believing what they want to believe in, and We're programmed now to live in echo chambers so we can only hear what we want to hear.

And it seems to me that truth died a long time ago.

Jonah Platt: What responsibility, if any, do you feel that Jewish industry leaders have in terms of speaking out against Jew hate and in support of Israel?

Marc Platt: I think all of us have a responsibility to stand up for our community like any other community that receives hate.

Has to stand up because one of the things we've learned really since October 7th is if we don't do it, nobody else will. And of course, there's some credible exceptions to that, which is why we covet and, and, and look to our allies with such great appreciation and such respect these days. But I think all of us, in whatever position we're in, [00:44:00] have a responsibility to speak up.

Now, we may do it in different ways. Some may do it publicly, some may do it privately, but we all have an obligation to right the wrong like we would for any other community and have. For other communities for so long.

Jonah Platt: You're somebody who prefers the private route, for the most part. What's the calculus for you in that strategy?

Marc Platt: I'll characterize that. For many years, my participation in the Federation was as a speaker. Mm hmm. And I would travel the country and speak to fundraising events who wanted to hear about Hollywood. What I would discuss with them, it, uh, often discuss Wicked, the Broadway musical and the values in that, and and what it was to be Jewish in Hollywood, et cetera, et cetera.

In the world we're living in now, I find, particularly with social media, my style and my effectiveness is because I'm not on social media. I'm not someone who. I'm [00:45:00] not a politician. I'm not going to speak at a, you know, political event. But when I see someone speak in a way that feels terribly misinformed to me, I have found it to be most effective to reach out directly to that person and say, can I sit down with you?

Would you have a conversation with me? You posted something, you said something, um, and I'd like to present to you the other side. Or, I feel it's You know, seriously misinformed, and I've had some some some great success there. I mean, one never knows for sure, but I feel like I've had great impact one on one.

I've been invited into people's homes thereafter. I know some of the A work that individuals have done who have posted some things that I have found upsetting. And I've had some not successful encounters where I've tried my best, but the individual's coming from a place of what feels to me just like hate, and Jew hate, period.

And people [00:46:00] know my faith in Hollywood. People know, uh, what I stand for, and that's because I speak the speak. Again, maybe it's not in a front of a camera,

Jonah Platt: sure,

Marc Platt: but it is to the community and I would venture if you went out in the community and asked about people would know that I'm Jewish, that I'm proud of it, that I'm engaged, that I'm active, that I don't tolerate Jew hate or any other kind of hate.

and that I can be relied on. Um, there was documentaries that came out this past year. I sponsored screenings and went and introduced them, particularly the documentary on the Nova music.

Jonah Platt: We Will Dance Again.

Marc Platt: We Will Dance Again. So I hosted that at Paramount. I spoke on its behalf. Mm hmm. I've hosted events, as you know.

At the Nova Exhibit. At the Nova Exhibit, I hosted an event with Scooter and others. Again, reaching out to all communities and politicians very successfully. in building communities. Mom and I are hosting a dinner in our backyard.

Jonah Platt: Which I'm [00:47:00] missing, sadly. Which you're

Marc Platt: missing to bridge the Jewish community and the black community that Van Jones is helping us with, so.

I am public in that regard. And I'm happy to be very public in that regard. Um, when I'm working with artists, I find it more effective. To sit across from a table and say this is what you're not understanding and walking them through it and, and it's proved effective for me.

Jonah Platt: Have you felt the silence from some of your peers or your colleagues in the industry in the past 18 months?

Without,

Marc Platt: without question. I think the, one of the most disappointing, One of the most upsetting aspects since October 7th has been the silence or even abandonment of others, my colleagues, who have either gone quiet or abandoned me, you know, when I again talking about being public when the October 7th meeting.

first occurred, I set up a series of zooms from different communities. One was a sport zoom, one was a [00:48:00] Hollywood zoom, and we talked to Jews and non Jews alike about what was going on, the hostages, etc, etc. But there were some communities where I tried to organize that, again, for purposes of educating and saying, here's the other side.

Let me, let's just walk through both sides of it. where there wasn't an interest in a game.

Jonah Platt: Would you say that sort of came more from non Jewish colleagues, Jewish colleagues, or even I'd say mostly,

Marc Platt: I would say mostly non Jewish colleagues, but some Jewish colleagues too. That's gotta be tough. It's very tough.

You know, it's almost like you don't want to know everything about somebody, because once you do, you can't erase it. Yeah. And so, a lot of the projects I was in the middle of since October 7th, I was cautious about, not about myself, but about not soliciting. Other people's points of view in a way that would make it impossible for me to continue working when I was in the middle of something, but I'm very, you know, I read everything and I'm, I get a [00:49:00] lot of incoming if there's people upset in the Jewish community in Hollywood will call me about this person, that person.

And what I do have, like everybody else, has this choice to choose who I work with, uh, who I engage with.

Jonah Platt: Several members of the Wicked cast, including Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Bowen Yang, have been active, at least online, in their opposition to Israel, artists for a ceasefire, uh, someone who cares so much about your professional relationships and the the product you're making on set, how do you navigate that?

Marc Platt: I talk to people and, and I think, particularly in those instances, people are told that something is about something in a very reductive way. Mm hmm. And it feels like, who doesn't care about innocent tragedy? Innocent civilians. Uh, nobody wants, no decent human being wants any suffering. Inhumanity from decent people what happens in instances as individuals [00:50:00] ascribe their names to something where they're not being completely informed and the messaging to them is They're suffering here, right?

We have to speak out for suffering the message doesn't include there's also suffering over here or There's suffering that was prompted or instigated by an act of terror or an act of evil Or there's a terrorist group in place that wishes for the annihilation of a whole group of people, that gets left out of the conversation.

And so, my way of dealing with this is when the moment is right, is to have that conversation, where it can be heard. Right. And where, where what I'm saying can be heard, not in the, in the midst of, of anger and, because the people you referenced aren't those people, they're Sure. But where it can be heard and processed.

And therefore understood. And I, I feel good about those conversations that have been had.

Jonah Platt: Do you have any feelings, [00:51:00] one way or the other, about Jewish representation in film? Has that ever been something that's been a, uh, crossed your mind?

Marc Platt: It's crossed my mind a lot years ago. I feel like there is Jewish rep I think there is There's been increasing amounts of Jewish representation in film and television.

But there's different kinds of representations. I believe there are a lot of Jewish folks working in Hollywood. Right. Are there a lot of Jewish stories? Probably not enough. Should they be considered stories that are worthy as from an underrepresented group? They should be. Yeah. In my opinion.

Jonah Platt: Mm hmm.

Marc Platt: But I also believe that art is empathy.

And one of the things lacking in our world is empathy. Um, because we are living in these corridors. These echo chambers. And while I think that the ability to identify with your community is very significant, important, and to feel represented is very important and to feel you belong and to be seen as very important.

I also believe [00:52:00] that without empathy, this world will be even worse shape than it's in now. The ability to step into someone else's shoes. and feel what they're feeling is what makes an artist. Whether you're a painter, sculptor, an actor, a writer, or director. Do I believe that every character that's Jewish in film or TV needs to be played by a Jewish actor?

I don't. Like I believe there are plenty of Jewish actors who can play non Jewish roles and I want them to get those roles. For me, again, someone who tries to live in the center, where I draw the line is if the story is about being Jewish, queer. If it's about being queer, that's the essential ingredient of the story.

Then I feel like representation is even more significant and that it wants to be portrayed or directed or written by someone from that community. But I also, uh, uh, that's what I mean by living in the center. So, You know, there are many people who influence a story. Actors, writers, [00:53:00] directors, producers. So I like there to be representation, but I don't believe it has to be singular.

Yeah. In a subject matter. I think it's a dangerous one. I think that's fair.

Jonah Platt: Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about your philanthropy, and then we're going to wrap it up. But it's important to mention because you and my mom have both been incredibly thoughtful and generous Jewish philanthropists, among other things, but certainly Jewish focused.

You, as we spoke about earlier, a lot of the way that you have chosen to do your philanthropy is not in a public facing way, but in a way that either just person or place that it's supporting is aware of it, or maybe not even them. Very Righteous, holy way to go about it. Something I very much admire. What has led you to play it that way?

For a lot of people, they want that thank you or that recognition. It's not something you seem to court.

Marc Platt: I don't like being the center of attention on a good day. Like, even when it's my film. Uh, or my play, [00:54:00] but certainly when it's about doing something good for somebody else. To me, the institution, the individual, stands front and center.

And also, I've studied some Talmud in my time, and so I know the value of being able to do mitzvot in, in a quiet way. Not a secret way, a quiet way. And with humility. Because the joy is truly, honestly in the giving. It is. And it's not, it's not in the dinner, you know, those can be useful sometimes to galvanize a community or sometimes seeing your name on something makes you feel proud and is a call to action for other people.

Right. Oh, they're doing that. I need, so there's value in that. As I said, the joys in the giving and, and sometimes it's easier for some, not maybe institutions, but individuals to accept. When they need something and it is done quite

Jonah Platt: right if you can [00:55:00] offer prediction Where do you think Hollywood will be in five years?

What what's it gonna look like?

Marc Platt: I think we're in such an evolutionary moment in time both because of technology Yeah, everything from streaming to AI to the consolidation that's happening in businesses Mm hmm. So I don't I can't tell you exactly what it'll look like from sort of its mechanics and its institutions What I do believe are two things.

One is, people always want to be told stories. Yeah. That's where folklore started. Legends, rituals, come from storytelling. We gather every year at Passover to tell the story, the narrative. So I always believe, no matter how the stories are delivered or experienced, there's going to be a need for humanity to tell stories, and to be able to leave our lives for an hour, an hour and a half.

And live in someone else's story, in someone else's world. And I also will [00:56:00] continue to believe that there's both a need for, now more than ever, something inherent in what makes up humanity, that the collective experience is still really valuable. The films that I've enjoyed the most are the ones where there's, they're, they're amplified by the collective experience of sitting in a theater.

and feeling other people's experience as well as my own. And I, I think no matter how effective streaming is, and I think there's, there's, there are many virtues to streaming, and whatever the next platforms are that technology brings us, I still think that the collective experience will still be there, and I hope it will be.

Because we're living in a time where we're, we're becoming more isolated, more extreme from each other, and it affects everything. Mm hmm. Um. Middle Eastern politics to how we view entertainment.

Jonah Platt: I [00:57:00] have spoken on this show about going full Jew, like, really leaning into those parts of your Jewish self that sometimes there's a voice inside that says that's too Jew y or feels uncomfortable.

What would that look like for you, to go full Jew?

Marc Platt: For me, and I'm only speaking for me, I feel I am full Jew all the time. In someone else's eyes, that might not be, but I feel I am, and always have been, before I didn't need a war or a cultural revolution in this country, identity politics, to be who I am, or who I was raised to be and evolved into.

It's, it's my values, it's, it's, it's my presence in the community and the priorities I put in my life. My relationship to God, which is a personal thing to me. To me, I am full Jew, and I'm proud of it, and I don't know how to not be that.

Jonah Platt: Looking way ahead, you've mentioned your best friends, your eight grandchildren.[00:58:00]

What does the Jewish future look like for them, do you think?

Marc Platt: I have some fear about that, and rather than give in to the fear, what I have tried to do is, is what my children, you and your wife, Courtney, shout out to Courtney.

Jonah Platt: Weekly shout out to Courtney.

Marc Platt: Is all we can do is what my mom and dad did, even though the world is far more challenging.

To raise our kids and our grandkids with the right values, the right sense of self and self worth to provide unconditional love, Jewish tradition, Jewish ritual, a sense of faith. Sense of something bigger than ourselves in the world. These are all Jewish ideas and themes. And to impart that to them in how we live our lives, in how we gather for Shabbat, how we go to synagogue, and how we treat other people.

You know, I can remember you, all of you being like, where's mom? Why isn't dad home? Et cetera. And we were out doing federation things, or raising money, or et [00:59:00] cetera, and wanted you to know that's where we were. So, while I have fear, because I think the world is far more complicated and just so extreme, I do believe that it starts with your sense of who you are as a Jew and a person and yourself.

And that starts at home.

Jonah Platt: We've made it this far. I think we're gonna be okay. I sure hope so. Alright, let's end, as I love to do on the show, with a lightning round. Okay. Just gonna throw a couple quick ones at you. Okay. Favorite comedy?

Marc Platt: I love Tootsie from years ago. Mm hmm. I thought it was so funny. Um, I mean All right, we can go with Tootsie.

Yep.

Jonah Platt: What about favorite drama?

Marc Platt: I have three. Godfather I, Godfather II, and the film Cabaret, Bob Fosse's Cabaret. Mm. Favorite foreign film? I can't think of the name of it. Um, about the Italian father who goes into a concentration camp. Life is Beautiful? Life is Beautiful. Thank you, son. Of course. That I think would be my favorite foreign film.

Life is

Jonah Platt: Beautiful. Yeah, it's an incredible movie.

Marc Platt: Favorite Jewish holiday? Yom [01:00:00] Kippur.

Jonah Platt: I knew that would be your answer.

Marc Platt: Love Yom Kippur.

Jonah Platt: What do you love so much about it?

Marc Platt: I love a day where I completely shut down on everything and sit in synagogue all day and I can be contemplative and Above myself and my life, and I find it enriching, cathartic, and empowers me for the rest of the year.

Until I, until I recharge for the rest of the year.

Jonah Platt: Do you do Teshuvah in your, in your, beside you? I do Teshuvah,

Marc Platt: I think about all the bad producing I did, but also, not all the things I may have, Not done as well as I would have liked or did wrong. I take accounting. I spent a lot of time with your mom. Mm hmm.

And I really enjoy that holiday so much.

Jonah Platt: Nice. What's your least favorite Jewish holiday?

Marc Platt: My least favorite is probably the last six days of Passover. Love the first two. Right. And then get a little tired of the rest mostly because it's hard to navigate the world. Yeah. With our eating restrictions, but you do what you have to do.

Jonah Platt: Sure, fair. Do you have a [01:01:00] favorite Jewish or Yiddish word? Seichel. What is seichel?

Marc Platt: Seichel is like the wisdom to, like, to understand something. If people had more seichel in the world, we wouldn't have so much extremism.

Jonah Platt: I've never heard that before. Yeah. Cinnamon challah, chocolate challah, or plain challah?

Marc Platt: It's a close call between cinnamon and chocolate. I'm gonna go with cinnamon.

Jonah Platt: Okay, I just wanted to ask because we've had all three at the table. I'm gonna go with cinnamon. Okay, I was curious. Who's a better cook, my mom or your mom?

Marc Platt: Oh, how can you ask me that question? My mom was the best cook there ever was in the world.

She was amazing. Your mom is also the best cook that's ever

Jonah Platt: been in the world. Well handled. And

Marc Platt: they loved each other, and so I think of them very much as the same.

Jonah Platt: That's very sweet. What is a project you couldn't get made that you'd most like to make?

Marc Platt: One is an old project that is now dated that was called Bye Bye Brooklyn.

Mm hmm. Which was about a young Jewish kid, um, who lived in an Italian neighborhood and got beat up by the Italian kids all the time. [01:02:00] And he pretended to be best friends with a fictional baseball player. And the player ended up coming to his house to berate the kid and saw that he was the victim of all these bullies in the Italian neighborhood.

And became, like, his father figure. And, um, you remember that script? Of course. They made a musical of it. And I can never get it made, unfortunately. And the other is a project called Fox Hunt, also. Fox Hunt. Right. Which is a true story about a young fellow from Yemen, Mohammed al Samari, who'd be a great guest on this show.

I know. He was raised, as all his friends were, with tons of Jew hate and anti Israel and found a different way. And, and saw all sides of the equation. Um, and his family forced him to move to the south of Yemen because he started getting threats just when the civil war broke out and the Houthis took over the south.

I don't know how that hasn't

Jonah Platt: gotten made.

Marc Platt: It's been very challenging to get made and I'm still trying.

Jonah Platt: Last question of the day. [01:03:00] Anything you can tease for us about Wicked 2?

Marc Platt: It stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. I hear

Jonah Platt: they're very good. And they're really, really

Marc Platt: good and special. It, look, it, the first, the first film, both of those characters made choices at the end of that film.

And the second film really delves into What are the consequences?

Jonah Platt: Dad, thank you so much. Thank you, son. I'm so

Marc Platt: proud of you. I think your podcast is great. And I have such admiration for all that you do and say, and how you've chosen to live your life and how you advocate. So on behalf of not just your family, but the whole community.

We're all very grateful to you. Thank you, Dad.

Jonah Platt: Appreciate

Marc Platt: that. You bet.

Jonah Platt: Thank you for joining us for Bring Your Father to Work Day. Thanks to my dad for being here with me today and for being so incredibly supportive of this show, never missing an episode or a chance to tell me how much he loves it. A reminder to you all to please subscribe to the show [01:04:00] on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts and on our YouTube channel at youtube.

com slash at being Jewish podcast. And some magical things are happening over on my newsletter. So you'll definitely want to sign up for that too. At Jonah Platt. com. That's all folks. I'll see y'all back here swankified episode of being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.