Martin Starr Is Metal as Hell

Y ou may know Martin Starr as the acerbic engineer Bertram Gilfoyle from Silicon Valley. Or the judgemental screenwriter Roman DeBeers in Party Down. Or maybe you just recognize his face: that dude from the Judd Apatow universe, the one with the rectangular eyeglasses and a deadpan expression. He’s used to it by now. “More often than not, I just get the look of familiarity without specificity,” says Starr, 42. Flying under the radar has kept him humble. “When they were like, ‘We want you to interview this guy,’” he asks me, “were you like, Who the fuck is that?” 

This coming from a person who’s currently starring opposite Sylvester Stallone in the Paramount+ sleeper hit Tulsa King, created by Yellowstone boss Taylor Sheridan. And whose breakout series Freaks and Geeks, in which he played hopeless nerd Bill Haverchuck, has been ranked among the greatest of all time — a beloved cult favorite that turned 25 just a few days earlier. We’ll get into all of that later, but first, there’s business to attend to. 

On this Friday morning in late September, Starr and I are meeting at Craftsman Ave, a quirky industrial shop in Gowanus, Brooklyn, that offers lessons in making everything from leather bags to stained glass to knives. Tall and bushy-bearded, Starr arrives wearing a black cap embroidered with Takashi Murakami smiley flowers, his brunette hair tucked behind his ears, and a T-shirt with a skull and crossbones that reads, “Have a nice day!” (“It just spoke to me,” he says.) 

Inside, a legless wooden piano serves as a coffee table, hosting a massive bowl of Jolly Ranchers, while a millennial pink vespa is parked next to a vintage bellows camera on a tripod, which is somehow also connected to an iPhone. In the back is a tightly organized workshop that appears to contain every tool ever invented, decorated with a miniature disco ball that hovers over a hanging set of hammers and mallets. 

Starr has been making knives as a hobby for about eight years, usually flying from his home in Los Angeles to a friend’s studio in Vermont to forge blades. “I like the process,” he says, noting that the craft requires a lot of patience and can take as long as several months. “But I was also raised Buddhist, so maybe it’s just ingrained in me.” Starr says he’ll spend around four days making his own knives, so today, he opts for something speedier: a wall hook. He prepares for action. But instead of a clapperboard, we’re facing an insanely hot forge. “This might be weird,” he asks our instructor. “But how much rebar do you have?”

Editor’s picks

Starr brought his own work gloves, but opted to leave his apron behind in L.A. “My buddy pinned a dick on it,” he says, by way of explanation. “It felt like a bit much.” He reaches for his phone, showing me a photo of dazzling knives he made for friends who attended his wedding last year. Decorating each handle is a small penis, which he created with a 3D printer. “I had to figure out how to make it,” he says of the phallic party favor, which took several attempts to get right. “In the forging, as you’re creating that metal, this little piece [the dick] just evaporates. But that’s also part of the process. Metal is fun!” 

It’s a trippy conversation, as if Bill Haverchuck had quit AV club and joined shop class. Though that wouldn’t be a totally unexpected development. Seth Rogen and Sarah Hagan, Starr’s Freaks and Geeks co-stars (they played Ken Miller and Millie Kentner, respectively) with whom he’s remained tight, also have artistic hobbies. All three of the actors are into ceramics. “We should have a Freaks and Geeks reunion and celebrate 25 years at a ceramics studio,” jokes Hagan, who received a Starr-crafted dick knife at her own wedding.

“When I started doing pottery, Martin was one of the first people to come by,” Rogen tells me. “We’ll spend hours sitting around in my little studio in the garage making stuff, and it’s a delightful outlet. As actors, you get immersed in tastes of crafts and skills and other forms of expression. We had a bonsai period. We used to paint together. I haven’t forged with Martin yet, though, so I’m jealous of that.”

Related Content

Craftsman Ave’s forge, engraved with the brand name “Mr Volcano,” is aglow with orange coals. Our instructor, Jacob, recognizing Starr’s expertise, steps back to let him run the show. Starr throws on a flannel button-down and seizes a canister of propane in one hand, a long rod of steel (that rebar he asked for) in the other. He lights the rebar on fire, then falls into a slow and methodical routine: Pound the molten rod with a mallet to shape it, heat it again in the forge, repeat. He brings me over for instruction, explaining that the mallet technique isn’t about strength — it’s all in the wrist. “You’re hitting the same place every time,” he says. “Let the hammer fall and do its job.”

Soon enough, Starr hands me a six-inch wall hook, delicately curled at the top. “It’s not your first rodeo, I see,” the shop’s owner says. Starr looks up from the forge and delivers a predictably self-deprecating response: “I’m not that good at it.” 

TULSA KING, NOW in its second season, follows a New York capo named Dwight Manfredi (Stallone) who has spent the last 25 years in prison only to be exiled by his boss to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Starr plays Bodhi, a cannabis dispensary owner who Dwight strong-arms into a partnership. With his signature sarcasm, Starr is the perfect comic foil for Stallone’s gruff gangster bravado. (In Season One, when one of Dwight’s henchmen pats down the weed dealer for wires, Bodhi says, “For starters, it would have been really thoughtful if you’d have wiped your hands first, considering you just ate ribs.”) “Sometimes I pinch myself,” Starr says of working with the Hollywood icon. “Like, ‘How the hell did I end up here?’” 

Appearing in Stallone’s 2022 superhero movie, Samaritan, Starr concedes, “probably helped.” Although the two never crossed paths on that film, Starr says Stallone is known to thoroughly research everyone he works with. Still, he thought, “There’s no way this guy knows anything I’ve done. Somebody must have told him that I was good at comedy.” Then one day on set, to Starr’s surprise, Stallone started asking him behind-the-scenes questions about Silicon Valley. “He’s always been so respectful to me,” Starr says. “To give him my thoughts on the comedy of the scenes, and watch him respond because he respects what I bring to the table, is a pretty cool feeling.” 

Starr says Stallone even has some comedic chops of his own. He recalls the first day of shooting Season One, when Stallone wasn’t needed on set. “Usually, he made a habit of going back to his trailer, but the cameras had gone out of the room and he stuck around,” Starr says. “It was just me and him and one of the grips. He got quiet for a second and I was like, ‘How are you feeling, Sly?’ And he just said, ‘Superior.’ Me and the grip just laughed. What a funny response to this question — he must know how funny he is. But I can see why he feels superior. He’s got every right to at this point in his life.”

As Season Two winds down (the final episode airs Nov. 17), Starr isn’t sure what the future holds for Bodhi. “We’ll see how long this ride lasts,” he says. But for the sake of his co-star he kind of hopes things slow down. “I think Stallone should probably enjoy some time off,” Starr muses. “He doesn’t seem to be able to. Maybe it’s just his engine. But I know his back was hurting quite a bit this season and he is very good at not letting that be an issue. Maybe he…” Starr pauses. “I don’t know why I’m giving advice to Sylvester Stallone. I’ve got no place to do that.”

We’re sitting on a leather couch in front of the piano coffee table, underneath a mounted stack of barrels fitted with spouts. There’s a monstrous piece of art on the table — an insect made of metal — which neither of us acknowledge. Starr had worn a Sonic Youth shirt for an appearance on Fox 5’s Good Day New York earlier this morning. But he decided to change before our interview. Given the history of this magazine, he “was going to rock a band T-shirt,” he says. “[But] you’ll see through the facade of musical awareness that doesn’t exist here.”

Starr doesn’t enjoy doing press, but he went on the morning show because he’s friends with co-host Curt Menefee. “I don’t really put weight on a lot of things in my life, even jobs,” he says. “I feel grateful for everything that I’ve been fortunate enough to have in life. But I recognize a lot of that is circumstance. And whatever talent I have is also circumstantial. The only thing I can truly be proud of is the hard work that I put into things.”

Freaks and Geeks — created by Paul Feig and centered on two factions of high schoolers in early-Eighties suburban Michigan — was canceled after just one season in 2000. But it only seems to grow in popularity with each passing year. The day before, The New York Times had published two different features celebrating its 25th anniversary, articles Starr isn’t aware of until I mention them. “Now they care?” he says dryly. “Why didn’t they care when we were on the fucking air?” But eventually, the Buddhist in him emerges: “Freaks and Geeks could probably have been huge if it had been given a little more time. But it also was exactly what needed to happen, I think, because it gave us all the start — especially at that age, being the first thing most of us had ever done. If succeeding were too easy, we’d probably all be crackheads right now.”

It’s impossible to discuss the show without a certain moment coming up. That would be Starr’s scene in the 14th episode, “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers,” written and directed by Apatow. In it, Starr’s character Bill comes home from school, makes a grilled cheese, and eats it while cracking up to Garry Shandling on the television. That’s it. There are no lines. Just the Who’s “I’m One” playing as Bill has this private, poignant moment in his living room.

The scene is now considered iconic. “He stole that whole show,” Rogen says of Starr. “As we were doing it, we were all pretty aware that nobody was as locked in as Martin was. He seemed to embody the tone of the show perfectly. Anyone to this day who comes up to me and talks about the show, they’re always like, ‘Oh my God, that scene with Martin.’ He created an entire character, and within that character he could do anything. It was unbelievably impressive to watch.”

“That’s my favorite character on the show,” Hagan adds. “Whenever he would come onscreen, you couldn’t keep your eyes off of what he was doing.”

“I was feeling like I belonged somewhere,” Starr says, reflecting on his time on the show. “I got to flourish and find appreciation from people older than me who could guide me. That was such an incredibly fortunate place to be at 16.” Starr thinks there’s a simple reason Freaks and Geeks continues to resonate. “Every one of those stories comes from someone’s real life,” he says. “It’s so true and honest.” 

Still, he acknowledges the show’s legacy is complicated, saying, “People in our group have done terrible things.” Starr is referring to James Franco, who was accused of sexual misconduct in 2018. Though Franco played one of the freaks (Daniel Desario) and didn’t have much screen time with Starr, they developed a friendship while filming. But, like Rogen, Starr is no longer in contact with the actor. “Franco was a weirdo back then, too,” Starr says. “He was hiding some secrets.”

Starr and Rogen, on the contrary, have stayed close, even living as roommates in the aftermath of Freaks and Geeks. “It was not clean,” Rogen says of their apartment. “I had a bedroom and he had a bedroom, and there was a room that was full of garbage, basically.” One evening, Rogen came home and found a drunken Starr passed out on the kitchen floor. “It was really hot, and the oven door was open,” he says. “He passed out mid-tater tot endeavor.” 

As in most friendships, they’ve experienced some ups and downs — to the point where Starr almost didn’t attend Rogen’s wedding in 2011. “We weren’t talking a lot at that time and I didn’t feel that connected to him,” Starr says. But the day of the ceremony, Rogen asked Starr if he would come do a reading. “I was adamant that he participated in my wedding,” Rogen says. “To me, he’s like a close cousin. I grew up with him. I wouldn’t be the same person if I hadn’t known Martin.” 

Last year, Rogen returned the favor by serving as the ring bearer at Starr’s wedding to musician Alex Gehring. “It was stressful, honestly,” Rogen says. “I misplace things a lot. I was worried about that.”

THE YEARS FOLLOWING Freaks and Geeks were not easy for Starr. He recalls a rough patch in the early 2000s, when he was forced to move back in with his mom. “I struggled so much with what I looked like and who I wanted to be,” he says. “In the American dream of looks, I was not dealt the hand that I wanted.”

During this lost period, Starr worked as a barista for a single day. It didn’t go well. “I left with two dollars from the tip jar,” he says. “In my mind I was like, ‘I’ll probably be coming back tomorrow.’ And then the guy called me and was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t think this is going to work out.’” 

But a 2007 Apatow film, where Starr plays one of Rogen’s stoner friends, got him back on track. “Knocked Up pulled me out of that hole,” Starr says. “I was like, ‘Great. I might not have to retire.’ …That period of my life forced me to do things that weren’t comfortable. And I got to be a barista for a couple hours.” 

Starr’s driver drops us off in the neighborhood of Dumbo, so we can get some matcha lattes. Starr stares at the pastry case inside the cafe. “I noticed that in New York, almond croissants kind of look like they’ve been run over by a car,” he says. He orders a matcha chai latte, which the baristas remake after mistakenly serving it iced. When a fly lands inside the rim, it’s hard not to laugh at his luck. But Starr is unfazed.

He has an idea for a new show he recently pitched to Adam McKay. In it, Starr will interview people who are making a positive impact on the world, like farmers who turn over soil (“There are methods of doing what Mother Nature does in a hundred years in just a few days,” he notes). 

“I want to create something for people like me that don’t want a smiling, happy, person to tell me how they think the future is going to be, because it always feels a little brainwashed,” Starr says. “I need some convincing.” The title? Martin’s Optimistic. “But I’m not optimistic,” he says. “Therein lies the rub.” 

Trending Stories

Standing on the Brooklyn sidewalk, a stranger approaches us. “Thank you for making me laugh, Martin,” the man says. “Hey,” Starr says. “You’re very welcome.”

Starr has to pick up a piece of pottery he made last time he was in town. He looks out onto the street as he waits for his driver, and turns to me. “You can cut out the part where I talk about myself.”