There was a vast demand for Patinkin-related content
February 4, 2021 3:41 AM   Subscribe

Scenes From a Marriage, Patinkin-Style | Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody’s charming, irreverent pandemic-era posts led to unlikely social media stardom. Will the vaccine end their run? Sarah Lyall writes for the NY Times about the past Patinkin year. “There’s no question,” Patinkin said. “Being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.” (psst - the photos/clips are the best part)

n March, they left Manhattan for their cabin in upstate New York and embarked, like so many of us, on something radically different: months of uninterrupted time together. The result is a matter of public record, because scenes from their marriage — in all its talky, squabbly, emotional, affectionate glory — are all over social media, courtesy of their son Gideon, 34, who started recording them for fun and then realized that there was a vast demand for Patinkin-related content.
posted by I_Love_Bananas (14 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Lovely article. Mandy's recent appearance on Marc Maron's podcast was a thing of beauty. Hardly a word about the industry, just two guys talking loss and survival. Highly recommended.
posted by Optamystic at 4:44 AM on February 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


Back when I worked for the International Recue Committee, both Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were recently enlisted as a couple of new "celebrity ambassadors" - people we'd tap to tweet things on social media about us, stuff like that. Some even went on trips to our various refugee camps so they could then advocate about offering help to refugees; they'd been to Jordan, I believe. And one afternoon we invited them to our office in New York to speak at one of our informal staff-wide meetings to share their experiences.

They were pretty dang adorable - talking mostly about the trip, with Mandy doing all the talking about their emotional journey and Kathryn talking about more of the comedic stuff. Mandy told a story about how one of the little Syrian kids he met nicknamed him "Grandfather" because of his big bushy beard, which he thought was just too cute for belief.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:04 AM on February 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


If you haven't already seen it, do watch a short interview his son did with him, in which he shares some of his memories of filming the great sword fight scene with Wesley. If you come away from that dry-eyed, I don't know what to tell you.
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 6:05 AM on February 4, 2021 [12 favorites]


I love this quote from Grody: “When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” she said. “I’m still in love with his face.”
posted by gudrun at 6:14 AM on February 4, 2021 [11 favorites]


Nutmeg, thanks for sharing that interview about the swordfight. Just beautiful.
posted by Zumbador at 6:45 AM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


He sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow. In Yiddish. wipes eyes
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:02 AM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


I just want to say one thing: as much as I've enjoyed Kevin Klein over the years, every time I've seen him on screen I've wished the part were played by Mandy, starting with A fish called Wanda.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:24 AM on February 4, 2021


Wow, can I get more envious of these lovely beautiful people??
posted by JanetLand at 8:38 AM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


For more content, I would also recommend reading the New Yorker Interview from October. I thought about this segment a lot:

One day, my son Gideon and I are walking down the street on the Upper West Side and he wants to talk about his life. He’s talking about bad nights, good nights, et cetera. And he says, “I watched you suffer for so many years over things that I could never understand what you were suffering about, because I was there and I saw it and it was great. I watched you suffering, and I learned that it was meaningless, that it had no worth, it was for nothing.” And I started to weep. All that suffering ended up being a gift to my sons, who knew that it was never worth it.
posted by borges at 9:22 AM on February 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


OMG. This is me and my wife (minus the talent and money). Even chronologically. We met in 1978 and married in 1980. I don't cry and Karen doesn't make me matzos, but much of it is spookily familiar. And yes, we are both wise-asses...
posted by jim in austin at 9:48 AM on February 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


The New Yorker interview made me tear up. Patinkin has a generosity of spirit that comes through in every performance. It does seem like he is trying to connect with every single person in the audience. I've missed the phenomenon of him and Katherine Grody in isolation so I will have to catch up!
posted by muddgirl at 1:36 PM on February 4, 2021


I highly recommend the WTF podcast conversation between Marc Maron and Mandy Patinkin Optamystic referenced.

Maron's actually been killing it lately, doing his thing over Zoom rather than in his home/studio like before the pandemic. He recently said it's been a better experience because his guests can just call in from where they are, and they don't have to show up with their normal entourage or have all the friction normally associated with a press junket.

The interview with Patinkin is really special. He's not plugging anything. It's just ~90 minutes of them talking about life, anxieties, grief, and how they want to leave their marks on the world.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 1:55 PM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


If you haven't already seen it, do watch a short interview his son did with him, in which he shares some of his memories of filming the great sword fight scene with Wesley.

Oh my GOSH.

So, in college I had a friend who took a class in stage combat on a whim, and turns out he was FREAKISHLY good at it - and loved it. He especially loved studying it, watching old stage fights and picking them apart.

And he LOOOOOOOOOOOVED the fight scenes in Princess Bride. LOVED. Any time we would watch the video, whenever we got through to the end of any of the fight scenes, he would be reaching for the remote and sheepishly saying "sorry guys, just one more time?" and rewinding to the beginning of the fight just to watch it all again, sometimes pausing to make sure we caught a given move. One bit he rewound over and over again, making sure we caught it - there's a bit the very first time Inigo meets Count Ruger, where Ruger orders the four guards with him to attack and Inigo dispatches them all within about five seconds in a masterfully choreographed set of moves. He would rewind that bit about five times in a row before letting us go ahead.

Hearing Mandy say he loved doing it as much as my friend loved watching it made me grin like a damn idiot just now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:58 PM on February 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


I've always thought the difference between that no-nonsense swordsmanship (and continuing on to the fight with Rugen) and the flashiness that Inigo and Westley display at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity was impressive. In the earlier scene it's clear that neither of them wants to kill the other, they're just enjoying showing off to each other pro-to-pro. With the guards and Rugen, there is only pure deadly intent.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:04 AM on February 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


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