Friend Therapy with Dan Bucatinsky

'Scandal' star Dan Bucatinsky may have landed his major roles in the 2000's but the grind started in the 90s!The actor, writer, and Lisa Kudrow's longtime producing partner describes the highs and lows of Hollywood. Like his Emmy nominated show that got cancelled, the major role on 'Friends' that he didn't end up getting, and how he stumbled upon the beginning of the streaming revolution. Plus- a HILARIOUS story about Dan Bucatinsky the house guest!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey Dude the Nineties Called with Christine Taylor and David Lasher.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Hey Dude, the Nineties Called podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
I am one of your hosts, David.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hi, David, I'm your other host, Christine.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
I know who you are.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I know who you are.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
What's up.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's good to see you too. I feel like our
nineties totally nineties trivia pop culture Questions was a hit
because we had we had a lot of people chiming
in with the answers. Do you even remember the question
from last week?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yes, because I looked on our Instagram basis. I was like,
oh my god, this pa.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
You loved it. And so I'm going to repeat the
question again. But anybody who's listening and say by the
Bell what we're Zach and Kelly dressed up as the
night before they broke up. Unanimously, everybody said Romeo and Juliet,
which is the correct answer. Most people were mad at
me for even giving multiple choice, because if you're a

(01:01):
huge Saved by the bellfan, you would know that you
wouldn't need the multiple choice. And then I went through
because I just figured I'd give you a trivia question.
We'll do it again, we'll give another trivia.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, this time, I won't.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
This time, I won't give multiple choice. And let's see
how that goes to make it a little more challenging.
All right, here we go. I didn't even know this
show was a nineties show. I thought this was like
an eighties show. But maybe I guess it was a
ninety show. Question, name the fictional town where Mighty morphin

(01:36):
Power Rangers is set. Would you know that fictional town? No,
that's not a show I watched. We were probably a
little older, right, it was probably like.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
We right, Yeah, it might be.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
For the younger folks, because I don't think, yeah, we
were in the nineties. We were in our twenties, so
we weren't really watching Power.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Ratio aware of it. Ranger We're a huge brand. Richards
were huge.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's why I feel like I felt like maybe it
was more maybe it's late eadies into nineties. But I
will not give a multiple choice. And let's see if
people know.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
The fictional town that the Power Rangers were.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
From, that it was set in that the show was
set in. Okay, and I'll answer that next week.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
All right, Yeah, leave comments on our Instagram. And then,
speaking of nineties. Do you want to officially announce this
exciting thing.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I think it's been officially announced that we are going
to nineties con together.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So excited. Yeah, it was nice. That's for entertainment.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
And US Weekly did a really nice article yesterday on
what we'll be there in Hartford, Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Right hard for Connecticut. We're a random place for this gigantic.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I think they must have they must house a giant
convention center there is it's going to be my guess.
They have to find cities that have these big places.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Right. How far is it from New York City? Do
you know Hartford?

Speaker 1 (02:59):
I think it's a few hours.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Okay, so we're going to stay in Hartford, Yes, yes,
I think.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
We're staying at a hotel near the venue. But and
our coastar Kelly Brown is confirmed. And our co star
Josh ty Gell, who I still think of as a
young boy, who's not because if you saw the picture,
he's a beard. She's a grown man.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
He's a private investigator who live We need to hire him.
This is what we'll talk to him about. He is confirmed.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I believe other people are figuring out if they can
do it. I'm not sure. I think Dave Brisbane. We're
figuring out if he can do it. But either way,
the four of us will be there that weekend for
a little it's the thirty fifth reunion. It's not like
it's I know, I don't think it's meant to be

(03:54):
just like a marker. But it's thirty five years since.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
And we've you've never done a convention, right, we've never
shown up me you Kelly, No, yeah, we've never done.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I've never even been asked to do a convention before
for any anything, nineties for anything anything.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
This nineties con is a big thing. I you know, yeah,
I've been watching it.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Froms in general are becoming comic con. It's like there's
all kinds of so anyway, it's a great way for
us to to get to say hi to fans and
for us to see each other. And maybe we'll even
try to do a podcast when we're there. That would be.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Oh, let's yeah, let's talk to iHeart about that, because
there would be I mean, my whole Sabrina cast is
going to be there, right. I read in the article
that like you're going to go back, You're going to
go back to that.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
What's the first time you read that you'll be going
from they don't. We'll just be David'll be bebopping around.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Anyway. Yeah, that's uh.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
We have an incredible guest today who is genuinely and
I know we say we have a lot of friends
who come on and we do, but this is truly
like one of my nearest and dearest friends in the
world who got his start in the nineties and has
done If you don't know his name, Dan Bukatinsky, you
have seen him in something or you have watched something

(05:24):
that he has written, because he has been in and
written for most of the some of the biggest shows
of the nineties and the two thousands. So let's welcome
him in and talk to my friend, Dan Bukatinsky. Hi,
there he is. How are you look great?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Thank you, Dan.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
This is David David. This is Dan David, one of
my oldest, oldest, oldest friends in the world. Dan, one
of my bestest friends in the world, my bestie.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Great to meet you. Thanks for being here. Man, it's
a pleasure to meet you. I've heard a lot about
you and I'm a fan of your of this and
all of it. Whether I was a fan of the
nineties or not is a different question.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
It was so funny when you asked, when I asked
you and you said you'd like most of my work
was really after the nineties, but listen, we were all
getting started at that time. Those are the stories that
fascinate us so much of like where you were at,
what you were doing, what was in your ether for you.
So you don't have to and we'll get to all

(06:29):
of the good work too. We'll get to all of
the good stuff.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
We don't have to get to the good stuff. I
think once you told me, once you asked me, I
went back. I really couldn't remember. I blacked out the
entire decade. So it was really so you say that too, David.
I know most.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Of our guests say, who did I ask the other day?

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Oh, Daisy Fentes responded to me, Yeah, I'll come on,
but I don't remember anything.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
I moved to Los Angeles in ninety one, nineteen ninety,
so like the first ten years of trying to even
get settled in this city and trying to figure out
what the hell to do were the nineties for me.
And it's so funny because I think back to that
time and it's like.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
I was so dumb.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
We were all transplanting ourselves into that city right then,
because ninety David ninety one was for us too, right,
all right?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
So Dan, I auditioned for Friends.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
See WoT you were one of the lucky ones because
you actually got an audition. I don't even get an
audition for friends.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
Which the side I remember the sides for Chandler, and
I was like, okay, you know, working on the sides
for Chandler and feeling like.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I was right, I didn't get it.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
You're not still waiting to hear.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
There's a pin in me. You might still get it.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Here's here's the I know probably. I mean here, I'm
going to say this. I was going to say, I
know so much about your life. But I also we
also had been on he was one of our first guests,
and he told a couple of stories I had never
heard before, which was so much fun, like some fun
New York audition stories back in the day that i'd
never heard. I heard the classics. But so I know

(08:22):
a little bit of your background. And also because you
just came and you had a big high school reunion.
Dan grew up in Westchester, New York, and he went
to his reunion and stayed with us.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Wait which for the weekend. I'm from Star Hill.

Speaker 6 (08:40):
Oh, I'm from Chappaquah.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Oh wow.

Speaker 5 (08:43):
And I don't say which reunion it was. It was
like my seventieth. But I hadn't been to one reunion,
not one college reunion, not one high school reunion, not
five ten, none of them.

Speaker 6 (08:55):
And I don't know what got into me.

Speaker 5 (08:58):
I had to come to New York anyway for this
other thing, and and I just thought, oh my god,
if Christine, by the way, you were a big draw,
like the fact that you were going to be even
in town. I was like, if I can at least
land at Christine's and be able to like decompress from
seeing all these people who were horrible to.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Me in high school but very very nice at the reunion.
I'm sure very nice at the union.

Speaker 6 (09:28):
They were like, hey, what's up, buddy.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
A lot of people are like you still acting?

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Oh no, oh my god, you.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Have I was like, no, I gave it up. Wait,
can I ask how did you two meet?

Speaker 5 (09:47):
We met because I wrote a pilot I'm trying to
think of that was actually the first time we ever met,
But it was I was a fan but we I
wrote a pilot in two thousand and whatever it was.
Then CBS picked it up and it was about three
couples who commute from New York to basically to Chappaquaw.

(10:10):
It's a story I've been trying to make for a
million years and believe I'm rebooting it. But in the
verse commune, it's the commute, right, And then the show
is called Commuters. And we offered a role to Christine
and I'll never forget you came into our office, Lisa
Kujo and I we're producing partners for fifteen years, and
our offices were at Warren Brothers and it was one

(10:32):
of the rainy days in LA and You've had a
gorgeous trench coat and you came into the office and
I was so starstruck and you sat down and we
started gabbing.

Speaker 6 (10:44):
From the second we met to the president.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
It's it never stopped. And what I was hiding under
that trench coat was a child that I was going
to have in the summer. Yeah, I didn't want anyone
to know that I was pregnant because I wasn't really
showing and it was Quinn and so this was Yeah,
it was two thousand and was it the fall of

(11:08):
two thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
We showed it.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
We shot it in the March of two thousand and five.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (11:15):
We were adopting.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
My husband and I were adopting a baby at the
exact same time, and so we were pregnant.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
And we had the baby while.

Speaker 6 (11:23):
We were shooting Commuters.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
So I remember bringing the baby to set, not a
great idea, and David Arquette.

Speaker 6 (11:29):
Like bringing the baby to his trailer.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
And I was like, is this.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
David and I played David Arkenda and I played husband
and wife. It was a few It was like three
different couples and what they're the dream underneath.

Speaker 6 (11:42):
Your secret at the end of the pilot was that
you were.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Pregnant, right, that's right, My god, that's perfect.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
But yeah, it was. It was such a good pilot
and it was so much fun.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
We had time.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
We did. We did and you did. We We had
a we I feel like when we were shooting because
I was. I ended up having him in July, so
four months after we shot, so I do remember starting
to show a little bit, but I wasn't showing too
too much when we met, and I didn't want this
The network to know when they're don't offering it to me,
so because I just because I wanted the job so badly,

(12:15):
so I was like, I will not disclose this.

Speaker 5 (12:18):
Well that's how that's how we met. And then we
became instant buddies.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
And then Ben and Christine and my husband and.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
I would like to have these dinners in New York
and we just kept it going for for however many years,
it's been almost.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Jarne's husband is Don Russ, who is a writer director,
has done incredible films that you know that your first
single talk.

Speaker 6 (12:43):
About the nineties. He wrote single White Female.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
He wrote this movie called love Field, and then he
wrote this movie called The Opposite of Sex, which we
shot in nineteen ninety seven, and it was the beginnings
of my relationship with Kudro and then that sort of
we started a company and then we made all these
other things you know, in the next decade.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
But you and Don were together already when you did
the movie together because you didn't have a role in
Opposite of Sex, So you guys were already.

Speaker 5 (13:12):
We met in ninety two, okay, So I was I
was only coming out to LA in nineteen ninety one.
I came out to LA with a sketch show that
I had written, a two person sketch show that I
was performing in New York at the Duplex at all
these clubs, and we had a shot of doing the
show in LA and I was going to come out
for a one year experiment and then go back to

(13:33):
New York. I did not want to stay in Los Angeles.
I want to make that perfectly clear. I had no
intention of staying Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
And I met Don a.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
Year later, and then I didn't think that was going
to pan out at all. We met and he was nice,
but he was older than me and more established. And
I was working in the box office of a theater
in Beverly Hills on Cannon Drive, and it was nineteen
ninety one, and I was making eight dollars an hour,
and I was just like all about making my sketch
show and getting an HBO special, and I was just very,

(14:04):
very driven, and I.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Just didn't think I had time for any of that.

Speaker 5 (14:08):
And I wound up staying in Los Angeles and with
him for thirty one years.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Dude, that's a good look back. That's why you're here man.
End of podcast.

Speaker 5 (14:22):
That's my nineties and now I'm in my nineties.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
It feels good. It feels good.

Speaker 6 (14:28):
I feel like I've had all the right work done.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
But okay, see that's a story I didn't know. I
didn't realize that you had come to LA with a
sketch show. So you you graduated from Vassar. Did you
study drama?

Speaker 5 (14:42):
I did, but I was an American Studies major. I
was like an independent major. And ironically I put together
this thesis I had to write about the American family
and how it's portrayed in comedies Intellivision, And my whole
writing career in from two thousand to the present has
in one way or another, been all about writing comedies

(15:05):
about the American family. So like the fact that when
I was twenty, I wanted to write this sort of
historical look back at that the you know, at what
made a comedy for why television was the right medium
for portraying the American family and how it's changed over
the years. And I, ironically that's what I wound up

(15:25):
writing a million times.

Speaker 6 (15:27):
It's it's weird.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Which which TV families did you write about?

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Do you remember I wrote about I Love Lucy, I
wrote about I Think Father knows best or leave it
to Beaver one of those two.

Speaker 6 (15:38):
And then I wrote about the Brady.

Speaker 5 (15:41):
Bunch and all the family, like I picked one from
every decade.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
I mean to go from like you know, the Cosby Ship,
I love Lucy to own the family in those twenty years.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (15:54):
Yeah, I mean just with the politics of what it
looked like to be in a marriage in the fifties,
it looked like to be in a marriage in the sixties,
and then seventies and eighties, and then it was in
the eighties that I turned it in, so I couldn't
really talk.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
About By the way, that would be a great little
docu series.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Oh yeah, just you run it out there.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Plants lots of seeds in this podcast. So and he
always puts it out there for the public to steal.
He doesn't save them.

Speaker 5 (16:24):
David gets points in everything that he gets pitched.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
No, I want to read your thesis, but I would not.
It's terrible.

Speaker 6 (16:31):
I found it in a box recently and I was like.

Speaker 5 (16:35):
I think I used the word perspectives about seventy five
times in eighty pages. So do the math seventy five
times in eighty pages.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
I tell you, just tell your chat gpt replace perspective
with anything else.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
All right, So Vasser, you you graduate and that was
when you were crafting this.

Speaker 5 (17:09):
I graduated. No, I graduated God so embarrassing. I graduated
with like and I went to Europe with my friends.
And then I came back and I moved to New
York to a basement apartment. Like Laverne and Shirley Old
Reference might have still been playing in the nineties, so
there and.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
The listeners know lever surely.

Speaker 5 (17:33):
This tiny apartment. It was five hundred dollars a month.
That was like where I could see everyone's feet.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
I hated it.

Speaker 5 (17:39):
I felt so, I felt like a like a rodent
in a in a in a cage. And I lived
there while I took dance classes and singing lesson classes
and acting classes, and I was going to be on Broadway.
I was going to be in a Broadway show. That
was all I had my sight set on. And I
did really crazy, stupid things that are really embarrassing.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Like you wanted to be in a musical, dude, I
want to be anything.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
I wanted to be in a musical or a play,
but I would I was relentless.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
I just I was relentless.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
I would go to all the.

Speaker 6 (18:10):
Agencies because they were all within five blocks.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
Who remember in New York there was like one building
where nine agents had offices, and then there was another
building where five agents at offices. And once a month
I would slide my picture and resume under the door
with not in an envelope with a letter, but face
up because someone had said, there's no way they can't
see your face if you throw that picture. I mean,

(18:33):
and more than once somebody opened the door while I
was on my hands and knees sliding my picture, and
someone stepped on my face.

Speaker 6 (18:41):
Like this is not.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Not humiliating, it's it's certainly not glamorous.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
It's not unique. I'll tell you this.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
A lot of our guests will go back and tell
stories of what they had to do, and it's this.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
It's fascinating, it's so.

Speaker 5 (18:56):
It's so I was so shamelessly, like I just wanted
it so badly, and I would do.

Speaker 6 (19:02):
And then I got a little job, and I got
another little job.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
And they were like really really little jobs, and then
I got my SAG card doing the hogging dogs industrial and.

Speaker 6 (19:11):
And then I can't believe I'm saying this.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Out aloud, Oh God. And then I made flyers.

Speaker 5 (19:20):
With my picture on them that said there's more to
being an actor than just calling yourself one. And then
I wrote Dan Bukatinsky, and then I bullet pointed the
five pathetic jobs I.

Speaker 6 (19:33):
Had just gotten that were like ridiculous. Okay, they were like, you.

Speaker 5 (19:37):
Know, along the lines of just stood outside Rocketbeller Center
handing out flyers for the Today Show, you know, stuff
like that. But I would just send these to the agencies, like,
you know what, there's more to calling you There's more
to being an actor than just calling yourself one. And
I am more than just calling myself one, although I
totally want so. I was shameless and pathetic. But then

(19:59):
I went to the ings and I took some classes
and I started writing sketches, and then I wrote this
two person show called Fear of Crashing, and we performed
it in a bunch of clubs in New York.

Speaker 6 (20:10):
And got some good reviews, and then had this.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
Chance to perform it in LA and I milked that
show for a really long time.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
And is that how you met Lisa? Was Lisa through
the comedy world?

Speaker 3 (20:26):
No?

Speaker 1 (20:27):
No, it wasn't a vassaor either right, it didn't.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
Meet advassaors I had done a play Advassador that she
remembers coming to see.

Speaker 6 (20:34):
But she and I were never friends and we never
crossed paths.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
We didn't cross paths until Dawn, my husband cast her
in the Opposite of Sex with Christina Ricci and Lisa
came on set and she was like, we went to Vassar,
and I said, I know, And then we became friends
while he.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Was shooting that movie in nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 5 (20:53):
And from that point on, she and her husband and
Don and I would get together, and then Don and
I would go on Friday nights to the taepings of
the Friends episodes and we would just hang out her
dressing room and play dominoes and eat the food. So
to this day, I've missed about four seasons of episodes
because I was upstairs and I missed.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
I was play you had the you were like primo access.
I mean I remember going as well, like I mean,
you know, it was just that was the hang which
we talk about a lot on the podcast, is with
with with actors and our peers of the of the
just the hanging out, like even your relationship with Lisa

(21:35):
how that blossomed just on the set of hanging Out.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
While you know the Law, just for our listeners on
Friday nights, the Friends taping was the best hang in
l a right.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
It was the place to be and you know, er
was shooting there.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I think I did a bunch of Veronica's closet and
if you're anywhere near there.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
It was so much fun. It was.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
It was conditioning on that lot. Was always like you
could not not see some star that was shooting a
series there. It was like, oh, Anthony Edwards and there,
you know, you would just see them kind of wondering.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, it was pretty great.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
And they had so much They had so much cloud
at that point, it was like, you know, that was.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Year season six, seven, eight nine.

Speaker 5 (22:22):
It was like towards it was the second half, and
they had tons of cloud and tons of power, and
they had.

Speaker 6 (22:27):
Warner Brothers build them a hangout.

Speaker 5 (22:29):
I don't know if you remember this, but behind stage
twenty five, which was the Friends stage, they built this
area that they wanted just for them, that nobody else
could go into. And it had refrigerators and tables and couches.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
It was a hangout.

Speaker 5 (22:44):
They and they and they made Warner Brothers build it,
and they built it and they never step foot of
it stopped.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Oh my god. I remember George Clooney had a basketball
court put in uh outside the er stage.

Speaker 6 (22:56):
But did he play He played it?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
He did.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Yes, these guys just wanted to know that they had
a place to hang but didn't hang there.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, go ahead, No, I was just going to ask
when what year did you do your friends? And was
that what did you have to audition?

Speaker 6 (23:15):
Okay, so just a real quick skip.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
So John did the Opposite of Sex, and then I
wrote a movie that was very loosely based on some
sketches from that original Fear of Crashing show. I turned
the main character from a straight guy to a gay guy,
and I turned it into this romantic comedy called All
Over the Guy, which I shot for half a million
dollars in nineteen ninety nine, so literally a year after

(23:41):
I met Lisa.

Speaker 6 (23:42):
She did a cameo in it. Christina Ricci did a
cameo in it.

Speaker 5 (23:45):
Like I asked a million favors and we sold the
movie and it came out in theaters, and as a
result of that, Lisa said to me, they want to
offer me a pod deal. At the time, they called
these vanity deals, like any star of show could get
a production entity on the Warren Brothers lot with an
assistant and a budget and a golf cart, and they

(24:07):
didn't really expect they didn't expect much from it, but
it was like a way of keeping keeping.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
The casts in the worst Yeah.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
Yes, And they would sit and Lisa was setting up
having meetings with every executive and every agent who wanted
to leave agencies and become a development executive. And Lisa
said to me, I don't want to partner with an agent.
I don't want to partner with a development executive. I
want to partner with another actor writer who could be creative.
And everyone said, who's this guy? Do not partner up

(24:41):
with just some guide and she was like, no, he
just made a movie, and that's how I want to
partner up with. So we started a company and she
was still shooting friends, so all of our conference calls
would happen from her dressing room and we would have
meetings at our office, which was just a few buildings over.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
You could use the golf cart.

Speaker 6 (25:00):
Golf cart was I.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Was in that major golf cart envy. That is a
status symbol of the time.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
Again, they didn't even the cast didn't even know they
had them.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Here's the other thing.

Speaker 5 (25:12):
There was a storage closet somewhere in the Warren Brothers
lot where there were six golf carts, one for each
of the cast members of Friends, and none of them
knew they had them.

Speaker 6 (25:22):
So I uncovered Lisa's and I put.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
Our logo of our company, Natch, because I'm obsessed with
swag and logos and bullshit, and I put our logo
on the golf cart and I zipped around.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
That lot for three years.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
It's so much fun.

Speaker 5 (25:39):
But I was always at the table reads and then
and I my husband and I had become friends with
David Crane who had created Friends, and so they saw
me there a lot and there was an episode where
they were like, Dan, you want to play the waiter
in Lisa's birthday episode?

Speaker 6 (25:54):
And I said, yeah, great, does.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
He come back? Was always you know, two episodes if
you're really good, so it was yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:06):
They offered it to me because I had sort of
been around and it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
And we were part of the family.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
You were that point, and I didn't really know the
other cast members though, like I li, I was pretty much.
I don't remember really having a relationship with any of
the others that much. They all said hi to me
and hugs and all that stuff, but we didn't. We
weren't friends well.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
And also by then they were also stratospheric that they
were all off, Like even when I did my episode episode,
Matt LeBlanc was off shooting Lost in Space in England
in London, and so he wasn't there all week. It
was his stand in, and then the tape day he

(26:49):
was there, they would that was his contract that he
would come in to shoot. Well season was it it
was season.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Five or something really still not to I mean.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, you know, there was like an early rehearsal in
the day that he could just kind of go. But
by that point it was so second nature to them,
and I just think so many they were all sort
of off in doing some many other things too, So
it was sort of a different time at that point.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
It was.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
It was, and we had just because it was sort
of normal for me to come in and have a
meeting with Lisa up in her while they were rehearsing,
and it was an exciting time to be starting a company,
and we made a bunch of pilots, and the Commuters
was part of a Warren Brothers deal, a part of
our deal. And I made another pilot, at least produced

(27:38):
with me and she and I produced a handful of pilots.
We did one with Jenine Garoffalo the same year we
shot Commuters. It was like nineteen No, that was in
two That was like two thousand and four, okay, right, and.

Speaker 6 (27:54):
Yeah, and actually I did Friends in two thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
All this stuff now is we started.

Speaker 6 (27:58):
The company in two thousand and three. All this stuff
is post nineties.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
But that's okay.

Speaker 6 (28:03):
I'm so sorry. I'm ruining everything you are.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
You're going to kill our podcast.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
You gave us some great ninety stories. Now we do.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
I want to tell you one thing though. I just
remember when I first came to LA and like maybe
within three or four years. I don't know how I
did it, but I started this robust voiceover career and
I worked for about nine years doing trailers and commercials.
It kept me alive because I wasn't getting any other work,
for sure. And one of the trailers I did was

(28:35):
for dude, Where's my Car? Yeah, Where's my car? So
I mean that's like, that's the best ninety story ever.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
And that's the best job in the world, right interacting.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Oh yeah, God, we have so many people come on
and say that was their bread and butter.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
That still is.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
That's the best job in the world. And like David
and I cannot a voiceover job to save our lives.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
The only the only.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Entry in is knowing somebody.

Speaker 5 (29:05):
Now now I know, but I can't get it. Literally,
I worked all the time. It was like a great
way to keep myself alive.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
While I was trying to do other things.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
I cannot get arrested as a voiceover actor today.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
And by the way, I mean, and I have to
pick and choose now, but I'll get sent things to
read for and talk about. And you're doing this in
the privacy of your own home. But the if anyone
could have a camera of me in where they say,
go into your closet, put a coat over your head.
You're trying to put a flashlight on your sides, and

(29:41):
you're only reading the lines that you're supposed to read.
You don't have someone reading with you, so you're just
reading like one crazy crazy and then and it's just
to me, that's that is where it really starts. I
start to spiral downward, but I'm like, what am I?

Speaker 3 (29:57):
What am I doing?

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Drenched in sweat because with the thing over the code,
and I was like, if maybe if I just don't
do it with the code over my head, I won't
seem as much.

Speaker 6 (30:09):
Or maybe if I just don't do it.

Speaker 5 (30:10):
That's why I always come to I'm like, what happens
if I don't do this, then you won't get it.

Speaker 6 (30:16):
I won't get it because I'm not going to any way.
But the dignity comes back.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Don't talk to actors talk about don't don't. Can we
talk about web therapy? Are we out to that point
yet or no?

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Web therapy and the comeback. I really want to talk
about the comeback to because you.

Speaker 6 (30:44):
Was predated web therapy.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Go come Back, Let's go comeback?

Speaker 6 (30:48):
Was the year, I mean, this was all happening at
the same time.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
It was like the year after the year after we
started our company, the comeback happened. It was a combination
of things at LISTA was having these these bunches with
Michael Patrick King to try to collaborate on a project,
and this was.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
This was going to be her first series post Friends, right.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
So just after Friends, I mean, just for our listeners,
Michael Patrick King wrote.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
Sex in the City, correct, he ran he ran Sex
in the City like Darren Starr created it, but then
Michael ran it.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
For the rest.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
So that's a powerful duo right there.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
Dora and HBO had a deal with Michael Patrick King,
so they were going to try to come up with
something for Lisa to do at HBO. And around that time,
I'll never forget it, we were at our offices at
Warner Brothers and Lisa and I had been watching this this.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Show, this reality show.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
And by the way, reality was it a completely different
world at that time. It was just starting out. Survivor
was new, Amusing Race was new, and this wild show
that followed Anna Nicole Smith.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Do you guys remember that, Yes, I remember it.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
It was e and it was like camera's in her
bedroom and cameras on the road with her and just
let's just follow Anna Nicole Smith and just see what
we get was sort of the premise of it.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
And it was riveting.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
And Lisa at the Groundlings years earlier, when she was
just getting started. She was in the Groundlings and she
played this character that she called panel character like talk
show character, and it was a character of an actress
on the Tonight Show, and it was it was basically
Valerie Cherish, her character from the Comeback, and she was imagining.
Lisa had this idea, like, imagine if cameras were following

(32:30):
like Anna Nicole Smith, but they were following this totally
self obsessed actress who had him hit in the eighties.
And she sort of talked about that with Michael and
at the end of like a three hour lunch they
had cooked up this notion that they would do a
show that was the raw footage of a reality show

(32:52):
about Valerie Cherish, a woman who had had a.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Hit in the in the eighties but was now about
to make her comeback and.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Beyond brilliant.

Speaker 6 (33:04):
We almost rolled it raw footage.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
We only we didn't call it, you know, we decided
on the Comeback, but it was going to be called
raw Footage. In fact, the production company we created to
make the Comeback was called Raw Footage Productions. We soon
realized that we couldn't just air raw footage because we
really wanted to. You absolutely had to edit it, but
it's still played like like the outtakes in a way

(33:27):
of of just cameras rolling all the time and seeing
the cameras in frame and all that stuff that was
so fun to do. And you know, they went, We went,
Michael and and Lisa and I went HBO to pitch
the show.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
Carolyn Strauss was the head then and.

Speaker 5 (33:44):
Had no idea what we were talking about, at least
was improvising, like in the room.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
At that table she was like.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
Carolyn was like, guys, you're just going to have to
shoot it. I don't really know the right now you
can go shoot And that's a perfect example of like
when you're when you walk in there with Lisa and
friends was over and I was at the height of
her career or at least at that time so far,
and Michael was at the top of his game.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
HBO is going to.

Speaker 5 (34:14):
Take us, you know, it's going to take a flyer
on something like that because it's a good bet. And
we got to make a bunch of episodes and it
sort of became. It didn't ever get a huge following,
but it got a cult following. Yeah, And so what
comeback happened. We were shooting it right at the same
time that right while I was shooting the Commuters and

(34:35):
that Jenine Garofolo Pilot like we had and we were
having a baby in two thousand and five.

Speaker 6 (34:40):
Almost blew my brain. It was just too much.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
And Dan, were you always going to play that character
or was that sort of written? Was did that just
evolve as it evolved?

Speaker 6 (34:52):
It evolved, believe it or not, you know, I don't
so you were.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Her publicist, right?

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (34:57):
It was so good.

Speaker 6 (35:00):
I think, I think I can't really explain it.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
It was like a weird dynamic.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
When we first started doing the comeback, Lisa and Michael
were partners and having created it, but Lisa and I
were partners as producers, and it was a weird. It
was hard to define roles at that time and collaborations,
and I was in the writer's room some of the time,
and I was also off doing other things. But once
Michael came up with this idea of this publicist that

(35:26):
that Valeries got to get a gay and she and
so she's going to hire you know, all the good
actresses have a gay and she needs a publicist.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
She's going to get a gay. And so she meets.

Speaker 6 (35:38):
This publicist who is like on his way out of PMK.

Speaker 5 (35:41):
You know the thing about the comeback is like, no
matter what, she was always sort of dealing with the loser,
but but.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
She put a big spin on it.

Speaker 5 (35:49):
You know, the guy who had just left a really
good job, and their hair and makeup person who had
left a really good job.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
But they were all all.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Her people like this light sort of like the the
lovable misfits, the rejects.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
Exactly, and she herself was one but would never, would
never acknowledge that about herself. She just that's what I
always admired Valerie as a character. People found her so cringey,
but I found her like, oh my god, she always
lands on her feet. She thinks she's amazing. She knows
how to spin failure into let's just get back up
on our feet. Like I found her incredibly inspiring characters.

(36:28):
I want to live that way me too. Yes, everybody,
those characters are fascinating. They're fascinating. They're like, lookd at
my People's Choice award and you're not thinking like, oh
my god, you have a people's choice of word, like
like good for you, and it's her it wall and
all of her you know, if you know, the characters
like that are delusional, right, I mean, there's something wrong

(36:49):
with them, which makes them more that all the more interesting. Yes,
either that or they're happier than any of us.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
They found the secret sauce.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
You kind of need to.

Speaker 6 (37:01):
Be I think they would.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
The comeback ride was really scary because nobody really knew
what we were doing. And then we aired, and you
know that, and then after the comeback did not we
got nominated for all these Emmys and then we were canceled.
It was devastating. It was It was September. It was
my birthday, September twenty second of two thousand and five.

Speaker 6 (37:24):
I was on a plane to.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
New York because my father had just been diagnosed and
it was It was a terrible time. And on the
airplane before taking off, Lisa called me to tell me
that we didn't get a pick up and I was like,
oh my god, it could be And this is our business.
It can be so good and it can be so punishing,
and you just have to.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Be able to ride that wave.

Speaker 5 (37:50):
That was a really tough one to swallow for a
very long time because we loved it and people loved it,
and the critics sort of found it fascinating and interesting
and HBO had just aired too many shows about the business.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
At the exact same.

Speaker 6 (38:04):
Time, Cleane Clooney had that one that was about behind.

Speaker 5 (38:08):
The scenes on a movie, and extras had just been
aired all the same network, all.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
On HBO Entourage, I know, Carolyn.

Speaker 5 (38:17):
Yeah, there was like four shows that were naval gazing
about business and they just looked at them all as
too much and so.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
They game inside, we need to broaden our horizons. But
then what happened with season two was that another net nine.

Speaker 5 (38:32):
Years later, nine years later, I you know, nine years
later it was time. There was an idea on the
table and I had had a conversation with with somebody
at HBO that was like, would you ever ever think
of eat this? And I said, if you would, then
you need to pick up the phone and call my partners.

(38:54):
And because you broke up with us, so we're not
going to ask you for I literally said, if you know,
you got to ask us for another day.

Speaker 6 (39:01):
And so they did and we went in and pitched another.

Speaker 5 (39:03):
Season and it was absolutely one of the most satisfying
things to create and to shoot, and it was a
much darker season and Seth Rogan was in it and
played this character and exploring who Valerie had become in
the nine years since she was on the air before,

(39:26):
and now it's been nine years since that second season.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
We've been involved in so many successful shows. Well, go ahead, David,
let's talk about web therapy. We need to talk about scandal.
Well want to talk about it?

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Who don't think you are?

Speaker 1 (39:48):
We need to talk about like.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
You, web therapy makes me think of you and Lisa
as sort of pioneers because the way you distributed the show,
it was before Netflix, right, Okay.

Speaker 6 (40:02):
Well no, no, Netflix was in the little little red envelopes, right.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
It was before the streaming Netflix or that we all know.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
But yeah, explain how you guys released that show, which
was ahead of its time.

Speaker 5 (40:14):
It really And again, you don't know that you're ahead
of your time until time go back. So at the time,
we were, you know, we were being told by our.

Speaker 6 (40:24):
Agents, you know, do you guys consider doing a web series?

Speaker 5 (40:27):
And Lisa kept being asked that, and she was like,
I don't want to do a web series. I don't
see the point in taking a pilot that someone wrote
and cutting it into.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Three pieces and then airing it as small little pieces.

Speaker 5 (40:42):
The only thing I can imagine doing really, and she
I remember when she said this. She's like, if we
did something for the web, it should be designed for
the web. It should be like something that exists only
on the web. Like how stupid would it be if
if someone got their therapy in three minute bites in
between breaks at work? And I was like, who could

(41:03):
be the therapist who would actually do that? And she's like,
you know and so, and she had this person in
her life that she used to imitate that was so funny,
and she started to merge these voices. Lisa is so
talented anyway.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
That's a genius. She's a comedic genius. She can do
it all. But she can do it.

Speaker 5 (41:20):
All, but the way unique, the way her brain works
is fascinating, and her ability to imitate people is amazing.
And then she merges two different real people into a
person and creates this character. And so she started to
We started to laugh our asses off, imagining a the
kind of people who thought it was a good idea
to get therapy for three minutes during lunch and be

(41:43):
the kind of therapist who thought that that would be
a good, good circus and we start so we get
approached by lexus.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
I mean, this is really before It's time.

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Lexus created a website called El's Studio where they just
wanted to create content, not commercials for Lexus, but content
that would appeal to the Lexus consumer. And Lisa at
the time was driving a Lexus just by coincidence, but
they identify Kudro as like she is right in the
pocket of the Lexus consumer. So whatever Lisa wants to do,

(42:17):
let's do. So they gave us a budget and we
had we asked for complete creative freedom, like we can't
be turning in drafts, and we want to improvise this,
and we want total creative control. And we started making
these little webisodes for L's Studio, and we asked our
friends to be in it, and Jane Lynch was in it,

(42:37):
and Steven Webber was in it, and Corny Cox was
in it, and we would just create the outline of
the stories.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
Who are these clients who, for whatever.

Speaker 5 (42:47):
Reason want a very quick therapeutic fix, and who is
this therapist who believes that one day she can take
the modality of web therapy and make a bajillion dollars,
Like that's what's driving And so we just we cooked
up web therapy and we would edit it in our
office and we shot it at our office. There's an
episode of web Therapy in the first season where we turned.

(43:11):
We turned the garage of the house that was our
office was a house in West Hollywood, and we took
the garage and we put all the innards of a
private We rented a private plane set and we put
it inside the garage and Alan Cumming was on a.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
Was his set was on.

Speaker 5 (43:28):
Was in a private plane, and we were using teleprompters
so that we could see each other and hear each
other with a with an earwig, and and that way
we could just improvise and be filming on both sides.
And I'll never forget there was a bird sitting on
top of the garage door while we were shooting, so
his through the entire episode you hear like and we

(43:57):
had to start to talk about it, like what, Wow,
it's amazing you're going so fast and there's a bird
that can Like we kept up so many times, but
it was the beginnings of making content. And suddenly Web
their wme said, you guys have made enough half like
eight minute episodes that if you took three of them,

(44:20):
you have a half hour comedy that we could sell
to a network, and so we pitched it to Bob
green Blad, who was the head of Showtime, and he said, yeah,
why don't we make half.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Hours of web therapy and air them?

Speaker 5 (44:33):
And pretty soon we were making them not only for
the web because our deal with the actors. This is
more than you want to hear, but the deal with
the actors was a new media contract. We couldn't afford
to make the show and pay everybody full sage.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Was there a sag new media contractor you.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
Guys have just been there had just been a cobble
together A one page rider to the SAD contract was
the new media contract. And by the way, we were
paying more money than what was the minimum for new media.
But we gave every actor, including ourselves, nine hundred dollars
for each episode, and that's all we would ever give,

(45:12):
plus residuals whatever. But everybody got the same amount for half.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
A day's work.

Speaker 5 (45:18):
And because it was a new media contract, Showtime couldn't
own it. Showtime could only license it, and so it
was really complicated.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
We had to air on the web first in.

Speaker 5 (45:32):
Order to satisfy that contract, and then we could cobble
together the half hours and it would become a reuse
of the content.

Speaker 6 (45:41):
For showtime and it was the first time anybody had
ever done that.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, this is the beginnings of the streaming world that
we all live and know. But also the contracts with
the actors, I mean, my god, you were on the
front lines of when they started.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
It was fascinating also because we had inadvertently become the studio.
Like we had studio, so we were just creating the content,
delivering it to showtime. Then we were responsible for reporting
it and then whatever income we got we had to
report to the union and pay the residuals to the actors.

Speaker 6 (46:12):
And we were acting like a mini studio.

Speaker 5 (46:15):
And then when Fremantle grabbed the episodes that we finished
and sold them internationally, we didn't self. You know, we
didn't make a lot of money, but you know, for
a couple of bucks per episode in Thailand and in Australia,
and we played across the world, and it was a
really good learning experience because we really got to create

(46:35):
that ourselves, and the relationships we had with actors is
what allowed.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Us to do the show. We just would call people
and say come on and.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Play n Ben and I never got that call, but
we're not going to hold that against you.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
It's kind of insane.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
It's kind of insane that no, no, no, I mean
it's insane with the actor, like you guys with your
roll inexes, so to speak.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Well, the fact that Meryl Streep did it is to
the Street. I was going to say, I will never forget.
I expected her not for bad reasons, but for just
normal business reasons. There was no way she was going
to show up to the hotel in New York where
we moved production for just for Meryl for one weekend
to shoot her in a hotel in New York.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Because that's what you do for Meryl Street.

Speaker 5 (47:25):
Oh yeah, it costs a fortune. But we're like everyone's
going to New York. We have to find a production
designer who will like turn these two hotel rooms into
the two sets, which we did. We borrowed people from
The Good, The Good, Fight, The Good, whatever.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
That show was, and Meryl walked in.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
She drove herself from her Connecticut home, and she drove herself.
We offered her a car, we offered she just drove
in and she was already in hair and makeup and
she was a complete like totally team player, laughing her
ass off and coming up with great ideas. And it
was like one of the highlights of my career just
watching she and Lisa, watching her and Lisa.

Speaker 7 (48:05):
Do it just play together. Oh, you know, it's really amazing. Yeah,
you guys, the cast on this show is unreal. I
mean yeah, people must have loved the writing and loved
you guys, and it was the prestige, you know, creative
project that everyone wanted to show up for.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
You.

Speaker 5 (48:24):
The stories were ridiculous in hindsight, like the fact that
we told. Some of the stories we told were absolutely ridiculous,
but they lent themselves to improv, which is why we
did them. And we just let people take it. You know,
Julia Luis Dreyfus comes from improv, so we just let
her take her relationship as Fiona's sister wherever she wanted,

(48:46):
and you know, and LeBlanc was on it, and Schwimmer
was on it, and Matthew Perry was on it. The
only we were trying to get Jennifer to be on it,
and she wanted to but she never could.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
And the schedule.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Victor Garber to Jones, Allan Cummings, I mean, these are
some of the greatest people.

Speaker 5 (49:04):
Great Victor was amazing as her gay husband, and it
was a highlight.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
It was just a highlight because people got to play.

Speaker 5 (49:12):
And by the way, every time we shot someone, we
were done in three hours, like they came on a
Saturday morning and they were wrapped by new Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
It's just the most fun job too. When you're going
to one of those where it's your friends, you know
you're going to just get to play and just have
complete creative freedom. And like, those are the jobs said,
And it doesn't matter if you're getting paid, if you're
paying them to fly, they here to do it. I
would do it.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
It was so fun.

Speaker 5 (49:39):
And Don directed every episode. I think I directed too,
but Don directed all the others and he would laugh
his ass off. You can hear him laughing in every episode, Like,
Don stop laughing. We can't get through it if we
because you could hear Don in your ear, you can
hear your partner, and you can also hear Don pitching lines.

(50:01):
You'd be like, oh my god, tell her, tell her
that you found her cat. Just tell her that you
found her cat.

Speaker 6 (50:06):
You know, you know I found your cat, you know,
Like he could just be just.

Speaker 5 (50:11):
Be pitching and then we pitch lines and they'd start laughing,
and then Don would start laughing, and you know, it
was just a fun It was just a fun job.
We're hoping to at some point make a couple more.
And Christine, please be on it.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
With belf We need to talk because I'm sure we
have fans scan fans listening here, I being one of them.
When you got when you went into Scandal, that again,

(50:45):
I feel like because you have been sort of you're
an actor who works NonStop, but you're also constantly writing,
and you've been on writing staffs of huge shows. So
you were on Grays right season of Grey's Anatomy. Did
you go into the Shonda land world?

Speaker 5 (51:04):
I was on an episode of Grays that was the
first time Shonda knew who I was.

Speaker 6 (51:11):
And then I auditioned for Scandal.

Speaker 5 (51:13):
I auditioned to play Huck and it was a great monologue,
but I knew I was never going to get it,
and then they were like, you know what, You're not Huck,
but well, we're going to find something for you. Was
what Shonda said to me. And then around the same
time that she was about to launch Scandal, my friends
Tony and Joan were running Grey's Anatomy and they asked me.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
To come on as a consulting producer as a writer.

Speaker 5 (51:34):
I can't remember if I had already appeared in season
one of Scandal.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
I think Ella will know, Ella will know all of.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
These times I did.

Speaker 5 (51:44):
I got asked to play Cyrus's husband by Linda Lowie,
who I knew because she had cast me in Under
the Tuscan Son and she texted me and I was
at my office and I got a text saying will
you be my husband's husband?

Speaker 6 (51:57):
And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
I don't know what, and then what that means?

Speaker 5 (52:03):
And so I wound up playing doing an episode around
the time that I was being asked to go on
to Grey's Anatomy. And I remember going in for a
meeting about writing on Grays with Shanda and her partner Betsy,
and Tony and Joan and I walked in and I said,
I would love to write on Grays. I really loved
playing this character of I don't want to put one

(52:28):
against the other, but I'm nervous that if I take
this job on Grays.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
And she said, we'll know where.

Speaker 5 (52:34):
To find you. You absolutely can write on Grads and
we'll know where to find you. And so I took
a job on Grades season eight, season eight, and throughout
season eight, when I was in an episode of Scandal,
I would pop out of the writer's room, I'd go
shoot for a day or two, I'd come back to
the writer's room. And then season nine, I was in

(52:54):
the writer's room again on Gray's and my character became
much more popular and more involved in you know that
story started to.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Accept storyline right exactly.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
I was then spending fifty percent of my time at
Grays and fifty percent of my time at Scandal and
developing another pilot for Shondaland. So I was I was
deeply in the Shondaland world for that those two years
twenty twelve to twenty fourteen.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
And you won yourself an Emmy. My friend, was that?
Just tell us what that felt like?

Speaker 3 (53:30):
It was?

Speaker 1 (53:30):
Because I know you so well and I know that
probably never in a million years did you think you
were going to win. No, you probably couldn't eve believe
getting nominated like it, I have.

Speaker 5 (53:39):
To say, getting nominated, I mean, of course it's a
thrill to win, but you know, it's possible that you
could win because you're already part of eight people. It's
as if it's as if the lottery were played in
two sections. You scratch off eight cards and then one
hundred of you are really close, so then you're like, oh, well,

(54:01):
this is a chance.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
But the fact that I.

Speaker 5 (54:03):
Got nominated was like one of the biggest thrills of
my entire life to this day. And then of course
winning was like an outer body experience. I think I
was having a nervous breakdown the.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Stage.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
That was the craziest thing I've ever experienced. But it
was a huge thrill.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
And you know, I had.

Speaker 5 (54:22):
Been in a very noisy episode of Scandal where Jeff
Perry and I had to take off all of our clothes.
It was my worst nightmare, my worst nightmare to show
any skin at all on.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Camera ever, Like the factily, I.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Was horrified, but we had to do it, and we
did it, and it was a very well written episode.
I mean it was like the short play in the
middle of the episode, just like really it had a
build to it, and it was emotional and it was dramatic.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
It was did you have an intimacy coordinator?

Speaker 5 (54:54):
It was before it was that job. To be honest
with you, like, I had to do a lot of
things on Scandal that made me feel very uncomfortable, and
I can see why that job is necessary. Not that
anybody meant any harm, but I think they took liberties
with me as a gay guy who was like, well,

(55:16):
this is nothing for you, but to have somebody push
your head down on Cameron or an ABC show on
the feat it's humiliating room and I was like, oh
my god, how many times have women been asked to
do shit on it?

Speaker 6 (55:32):
For fifty years on television and we just take it
for granted, like this is what women do.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
It's like, yes, if that's what was written, but there
is a way to talk about doing this.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
It's you and the other actor that ends up working
it out.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
Yeah, And you know, the thing is, Jeff was a
little older than me, and my character was supposed to
supposed to be sort of like his younger hot husband,
not hot, but like believably his younger boyfriend husband.

Speaker 6 (56:00):
And I think they.

Speaker 5 (56:01):
Just wanted my role sexually in his life to just
be a certain way.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
And I found it.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
It was cringing for you. Yeah, it was just hard.

Speaker 5 (56:11):
It was just and Luckily, the directors a good number
of the I mean Tom Verica was a producer on
the show and directed a ton of them, and he
was just so respectful and kind about how we did
all that stuff. Tony Goldwin, who was on the show,
was also directing a bunch of episodes, and we would
have conversations about it and I'm like, why do I

(56:32):
have to get on my knees? He's like, do you
know how many things I've had to lay on my
back on the in the Oval office with Carrie on top.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Of me, both married, And I was going to say
that Tony, those scenes, I mean, you know, talk about
pre intimacy coordinators. I mean Quinn did his high school
play and they had an intimacy coordinator for a for
a time.

Speaker 8 (56:56):
Yes, because we're in a year of we're in a
time where, especially with high school boys, and if there's
a girl and a boy and a scene and they're
supposed to be a kiss in a high school play
and they don't even know what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
She was brought in to make them all feel more
comfortable and had and be able to advocate for themselves
on what their comfort level was. The school was never
going to put them in any kind of position.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
But of course, but ten years ago they did. Ten
years ago, you'd be in a school play and you too.
Of course, no one even would ask us, Okay, you
two make out, you two make out, you're both under
the covers and just dry home. Okay, we're going to
lose the light, we're gonna lose.

Speaker 6 (57:34):
Just just do it. And you're like, of course, yes,
of course.

Speaker 5 (57:37):
And then you go home and you're rocking yourself and
you're taking a shot, you're crying like Glenn Close.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
And Fatal Attraction, and they tell it to you right
on the day, so you don't have a minute to
think about it.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Right Like I did a movie for Jack Bender.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
It took place in the in the sixties, and he's like,
you'd get out of bed, you wouldn't be wearing clothes,
so we're just gonna shoot you from behind.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
I was like, Okay, I I guess I don't have
a choice. I know this is the thing.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
Yeah, and we're yeah, you just don't. You don't want to,
you don't want to make a sense.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
By the way, by the way, I don't.

Speaker 5 (58:09):
Everybody was incredibly respectful. It was a The set was
cleared like nobody was disrespectful. I'm just saying it was
a different time where people, you know, we just take
for granted. You get what you have to get, and
you talk about it, and you talk about it together. David,
you said it. It's like you negotiate it with your
other actor and you and together you decide like are
you are you cool with this? And like you know,

(58:31):
I think we all used to do that for each
other for a very long time before someone got it
paid to help.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
You do that.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
Right now, it's a new new gig, all right, we
have to start wrapping up. This went by in like
seconds to me.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Seconds.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Talk to you, we haven't even gotten I mean, there's
so many things you have, so many, so many credits,
my friends, but he has so many things.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
To talk about.

Speaker 5 (59:02):
I spent most of my nineties just to go back
for a second, when I went and looked doing these
sort of one line parts on Party of Five, and
then I had a part on the show called Significant
Others with Jennifer Garner, and then I had this part
on My first job in Hollywood was on the Wonder Years.
I played a valet and David Schwimmer. I mean this
is This is what I think is so funny about

(59:23):
talking about careers that have spanned long periods of time.
Like I didn't even know who Swimmer was, nor did anybody,
but he was like the boyfriend on the Wonder Years.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
He was he was so good and I was, you know.

Speaker 5 (59:37):
And they wiped out on the motorcycle on the day
that I worked, and so they got hurt and they
had to shut down production and we had to reshoot
it three weeks later. And I remember I got paid again,
and I couldn't believe it. I can't believe I'm going
to get paid again, you know, to be the valet
to take someone's ticket and say I'll be right back
with my line. But the nineties, who are really all

(01:00:00):
about just like these one line roles? Waiter, I played
a jewelry clerk three times, believe it or not. I
don't know why at a waiter three times.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Casting It's so funny when that happens, where you've played something,
or you played the same character of the same name,
like three jobs, and I played Gaale like I don't
know how many times I'm Gail in certain things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Josh and Clueless, And then on Sabrina back to back,
had the same trailer at the Paramount.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Change your name. Amy, didn't know the people at Sabrina.
I don't know. You just seem like a Josh. Josh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Let's just call you Josh Karen. I have to we
have to let you go. But I have to end
on our moment when you came to stay for the
just because you couldn't write this. When you came with
the game to stay for the reunion, he had about
a half hour to I picked him up at the
train he came. He was going to take a quick shower,

(01:01:03):
change clothes, go to the union, come back. In between
that half hour, the fire department arrived at our house
because he set off this. No, it was the shower.

Speaker 5 (01:01:17):
I was taking a shower and I was also hanging
up all my clothes in the shower. That while I
was taking a shower, I was steaming my clothes and
then the steam when I opened.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
The door right into the hallway and off it was
the alarm. And it's all on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Us because the plate and it's not You're not the
I told you you're not the first person that has
happened to This has happened multiple times. It's where the
smoke detectors located. It's right outside of the shower, So
we've had it all changed. I hope it didn't scare
you away at.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Someone else's house.

Speaker 6 (01:01:49):
You just don't want to.

Speaker 5 (01:01:51):
And it's happened to me twice in my life, and
always with the biggest stars in the world.

Speaker 9 (01:01:56):
So I'm staying with Christine, Taylor and Ben. You don't
have to throw me in there as time. Taylor and
Ben still and I completely call the fire department. And
then about ten.

Speaker 5 (01:02:07):
Years earlier, I was staying at Gwyneth Paltrow's London flat
and I set I set the bedroom on fire. Oh
my goodness, I'm like, I should not be allowed to
stay in anyone's home, whether they're famous or not.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
This is a thing for you, This is a thing
that's a nice I like.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
You remember Ben seen in Along Came Polly where he's
at her house.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Oh the toilet that is that is my biggest nightmare
if that ever happened.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Well, we just watched that scene. We just showed that
movie to Quinn and rewatched it. I hadn't seen it
in years, and that I have. Quinn turned to me.
We were I was laughing. I mean tears, sobbing, because
it's not only is it, it's Ben's worst nightmare, and
it's Ben's worst night Seeing himself on screen, I was like,

(01:02:59):
why would he choose to use a hand towel to
flush it down?

Speaker 5 (01:03:02):
This perfect at the level of pandic of what one
does in that situation.

Speaker 6 (01:03:07):
She's so not smartly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I think the fire.

Speaker 5 (01:03:14):
I was like, I know the fire department's coming, and
then in walks you know, three honkey firemen, and I
was like, oh, this is so embarrassing.

Speaker 6 (01:03:22):
I just wanted to come and go and not be
noticed and it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Didn't work, and you made your mark and we are
going to do it again. Yeah, fireman free.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
It was letting me do that.

Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
Thank you because I was noticed to your house, but
I was not noticed at my reunion.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
So it wound up being a really useful weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
It made you feel good. I love you, Thank you
for doing this. This week is so funny, so fun you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Want a delight you guys, This is so fun, so
great to meet you. Man. I'm literally crying, I'm wiping tears.
So good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
All right, I'll talk to you later.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
I love you, Okay, thank you. I'm literally crying from laughter.
That was so funny. The fire department shows up, No, and.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
It was so clear because I tried to call them off,
but once it's called in, you can't illegally, they can't.
They have to come. And I waited for them, and
I said, do you really have to go over there?
Because I have a house guest who's about to go
out to his reunion and he's like getting changed. You
really have to go in and check. He said, well,
we'd feel better about it. Okay, okay, okay. Anyway, that

(01:04:37):
was great fun he was.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
He's so funny, Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
So talented and just the greatest. Yeah, he's just he's
you know, he's really my bestie. He's my bestie. I
just love it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
I was so happy to talk to him.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
And honestly, the way they did web therapy, they're like
they were like pioneers.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Like to get Lisa Kudro to do a web show,
I mean that was unheard of in eight you know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah, it was what Dan said too. They really were
so ahead of their time, and even we didn't even
get to some of the They produced game shows together,
like really cool fun game shows that they started to
like there's They've been so prolific in their work together,
and I know they're no longer producing partners, but they're
like best of friends and really really awesome. So thanks

(01:05:34):
to Dan for coming on, and thanks to all of
our listeners for coming back. Well we'll be back next week.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Yeah, thanks for listening, everybody, have a great week.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Thanks for listening. Make sure to subscribe and give us
five stars.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
And please follow us on Instagram at Hey Dude. The
nineties called See you next time.