Diederich Bader

This episode was originally published on September 12, 2023.

On this week’s episode, Craig chats with his long-time friend and “The Drew Carey Show” co-star, Diedrich Bader. To quote Craig: “Diedrich Bader, a great actor who has been in everything you’ve ever liked!” He is best known for his roles in Veep, Better Things, American Housewife, The Beverly Hillbillies, Napoleon Dynamite and many, many others. EnJOY!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is me, Craig Ferguson.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new
comedy hour. Well it's actually it's about an hour and
a half and I don't have an opener because these
guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be
on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me
live on the Pants on Fire Tour in your region.
Tickets our own sale now, and we'll be adding more
as the tour continues throughout twenty twenty five and beyond.

(00:25):
For a full list of dates, go to the Craig
Ferguson show dot com. See you on the road, My DearS.
My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast
is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what
brings them happiness. Here's d Drich Bader, a great actor

(00:47):
who's been in everything you've ever liked.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
I'm not kidding, wasn't it this enjoy when d drig
qwen I yes, I know, yeah, it's not about me,
it's about you.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's about you, and I'm just I will say no
it is because I want to tell I want to
start with this because when we were working together on
the Drew Carey Show, and you were paying oswood Lee Harvey,
which is still maybe the best name for a characters.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I think it's great. We gotta laugh every time. Well,
because it's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
It's stupid and funny and stupid and funny gets funnier
the longer you say. But oswood Lee Harvey, which is
on a par with count Al you card as a
stupid name.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
But you were playing that fairly early on in the run.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Now I'm going to say, because you were the only
person that I had heard of when I started that show,
because you had done the Beverly Hillbillies, played Jeth Throw
in the Beverly Hill Billies.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
And you were really good at it. Well, thank you.
And that was a hit movie, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
No, that was a bomb, Otherwise I wouldn't have been
on the Drew care be a major movie star, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I mean you you can be a movie star and
being a boat. You are a movie star. You were
in everything.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
No, it didn't make enough money to be attractive to
hire me. Success breed success, and only people only want
to be associated with success.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, yeah, that might explain my life a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
My friends, So people. I see. That's why I have
no friends, but you you only one i'd heard of.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
And I remember, do you remember when we did the
full Monty episode of the Drew Carey Show, Yes, of course,
and we all got naked. Yes, And then we went
to Las Vegas and Tim Allen's plane, Yes, and everyone
got trash.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
I got incredibly drush.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
You were the drunkest I like, remember I'm saying this
and I'm Scottish. You're one of the drunkest people I've
ever seen.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
The fact that I could stand was. I was amazed
at how drunk you were.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
But you were like walking around in loud with very
scary eyes. Yeah, you were very scary dancing. And then
you threw a plastic Boston.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I was remembering that this morning.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, you threw a bottle off the like the top
floor of a hotel and it landed on these women
three stories up. I was like that, and I ever
said to Kathy, who was the only other person not
I was like, that could have killed someone. Kathy, she said,
I know, and then we agreed we were the lamest
people in Las Vegas.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I was so well, did you totally took care of me?

Speaker 3 (03:32):
By the way.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
There's no way I would have made it into a
hotel room. I was scared.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
We slept together.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
We didn't well, I was there wasn't a lot of
sleep in. Nobody slept on. I think I slept a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
That's a couple of hours.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, But I mean, how did you guys do that
given the fact no one was on cocaine as far
as I knew, or were you guys on cocaine?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Oh no, no, so wasn't into drugs just booze.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
No, he was just a boos and not much of
a boozer really, No, he was kind of a way.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
But Ryan Styles is the Keith Richards of the unbelievable.
He has a hollow leg.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah. He My problem drank?

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Oh yeah, My problem was that time and every time
you did see me drunk was when I tried to
keep up with Bryan. I'm not blaming. I take responsibility
for him much. I drank totally, but.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I don't see I remember you being drunk that much.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
But every time drunk, because you're saying no, it is
that I was trying to keep up with them.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, just as the kind of a guy thing.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
And once you get into it, then you're like, and
then he's just pooring and he's fun as you know.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
He's really very, very fun. But here's his trick.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
When he gets drunk, and even when he's not drunk,
doesn't move that much of you know, it's he just
kind of, oh my gosh, stands.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
That's totally his trick.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Is his trick is he doesn't try and move his legs. No,
he doesn't or even face. Yeah, he just like says
funny things, little.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Bit and it's hilarious and it gets funnier and he's
very improvy.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, he's very good at that. Yeah, he's very good.
Did you do that Emperor who's laying? Isn't anyway?

Speaker 3 (05:01):
I never did, but I will say, yeah, the funniest
comedic improvisation that I have ever seen, and I've seen
a lot, was when we had the final Drew Carey
show dinner and you were invited. We had it on
Las Siena at some fancy restaurant. Oh, I got like
a private it was a private room room. And it

(05:25):
was at the end of the ninth season, which you
were not on.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
I wasn't on that. I was making Saving Grace.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
You were amazing that you showed up, but at that
point the cast had gotten so fractious. Only Ryan and
I were speaking to each other. I think Kathy and
I wish those ye no, no no, but I mean as
far as everybody that was there, we were still talking
to Kathy, but there was a lot of acrom It
was tense. It was like family at that point. It

(05:52):
was like family. That's my point. And Craig, you were
so funny. There was something about the awkwardness of the situation.
You literally were the funniest person. Don't see it speaks
about this, My wife speaks about this all the time,
really as being the funniest comedy set anyone has ever done,
because there was something about the awkwardness of it that

(06:15):
sparked you. And everything we said that was passive aggressive
to each other you picked up on and made a
joke out of and it was hilarious. It was like
you were trying to make things better.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
That's exactly like my family life when I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
You were just trying to make things better.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was just trying to make things better. I swear
to God. Three congression is the Scottish thing. Yeah, so
it is like, oh, and the interesting thing is I
also don't remember my childhood and I was sober. Yeah, right,
it's that most of your childhood, well not all of it,
but a fair amount of it.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
My childhood. Your childhood is very different though.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
You're like, you're DC, right, you're like government family and
with your father.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Spy or something. Yeah, I guess I can say that now. Yeah,
he was in the CIA, and he was in the CIA, right, yes, yeah,
and he was chief of Saffath Center Foreign Relations Committee.
He ended up being Assistant Secretary of State during the
Clint administration.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
So was he like did he do black holes and
stuff like that? Was he you know, away from you
know him, he did go away from home. All of
the stuff that he did in the field was before
I was born. But then he always kept a hand
in and he oddly enough, he was on the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence better known as the Church Committee,

(07:29):
and really went after the CIA. And because he was
in the CIA at one point, he was able to
use his contacts for those that were within the CIA
who were upset with the way the agency was going.
So the implication being that there is some corruption and
intelligence community because now should they find I hard to
believe anywhere that humans have power, that there would be

(07:51):
any kind of form of corruption is unbelieving.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah. And I think his greatest claim to fame, the
thing that was brought up in his obituary was that
he was the person that supplied Senator Fulbright, the Senator
from Arkansas, with the information about the Gulf of Tonkin,
which made Robert McNamara retire.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
That it was a lie. Wow, that was in his obituary.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
So that, I mean, that's a very impressive resume and
a very kind of specific world. Yes, And I was
always kind of intrigued, is how you why you weren't
drawn into that? It feels like like the gravitational pill
of that kind of thing would.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Be very strong. Were you tempted at that point?

Speaker 3 (08:30):
No, I just never never tempted. I think because I
saw how the sausage was made. The thing that it
did prepare me for in Hollywood was something that you
had alluded to earlier in this podcast, which is the
cyclical nature of a career, right, the shifting sands. My
dad like to call it the magic hat. So if

(08:52):
you have the magic hat on, everybody loves you, but
it's not you. It's the hat.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, that's very holy. Would that's all about? It really
is as well. But I mean your career is I mean,
you have had a stellar career. I was quite jealous
as I watched you. How was that even possible? You
were on great shows. You're on Beep, which is an
amazing show. You're on BoJack, which is like seminal. I
mean it's like rewriting the game. Yeah, is it something?

Speaker 3 (09:22):
I would say? Better Things was also I don't know
if you saw it, but Better Things is also a
good show. I did not see Better Things. Better Things
is a very solid, beautiful show.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
So the kind of thing that there's always been a
great depth to your work, which I don't think you
were used and I feel this a little bit a
couple of actors. Actually, I didn't see that you get
used that way In the Drew Carey Show when.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
You were playing Oswood Lee Harvey.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
It was a very it means a fun show, but
it was kind of two dimensional in many ways.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Well, it was entirely Yeah, we were like hothouse flowers.
We weren't real people. We were just vehicles for jokes.
That said, I totally enjoyed it. Yeah, me too, Well,
not totally but a lot of it. I think I
enjoyed it more than you did.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
I think you probably did. I think that it's funny
I remember, and I don't think it was because of
the size of the part. You had a good part
and you were you were a rock solid performer, like
you fucking kicked ass every week and it like rock
star every week. So I don't think it was the
size of the part. I think it's because you were
more ambitious than me. Definitely I was. I don't think

(10:26):
I still suffer from that, but I did.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
I did. I think at the time, yeah, definitely. And
from my perspective, I'm not no.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I think no. I think you're right.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
I think that I was looking at you guys, and
I felt like you were all doing better than me,
which is what ambitious people always think, like everybody's doing
better than.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Me, and that's such true.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's like it's fucking stupid.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
And then like after I had gotten maybe I don't know,
I was about eighteen months and doing the late night
show and I ran and I think it was Jerry,
the director. Jerry used to do the show, and he said, wow, yeah,
if ever I I you know, it was him, and
Drew said, if ever a guy needed a show with
his name on it, it's you, Craig, And I went, really,
so I'm starting next to Drew Carey from the fucking

(11:09):
Drew Carey Show for nine years. He's like, yeah, it's different,
it's not You didn't suffer from that ambstion? Did you
not feel that like, I mean, you were coming off
like the Beverly Hillbillies, big giant movie.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Did you not feel was your ambition not burning hall
at that point?

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, I was disappointed by the reaction of the Beverly Hillbillies.
I thought I was going to be a movie star
for a brief time, and then I dipped back into
television frankly because I ran out of money. And then
I only did the Drew Carey Show because I was
trying to drive.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
I never told you this story. No, I don't know
this story.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
So the Drew Carey Show was my second pilot of
the season. I was on the revamping of Margaret Chow's Show,
but then about I didn't believe in the show. About
halfway through the show, my agent like came and said
I have to go and the Drew Carey Show or
and I said, how do I get off this show?

Speaker 1 (11:59):
And he goes, you're halfway through the pilot. I was like, yeah,
this is really a mistake.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Everybody knows that, you know, and and he goes, okay, well,
so you know we're going to second position with something.
So he's like, okay, great, And I tested for a
pilot called Partners. Tate Donovan did it and John Cryer
got my partner. Okay, but anyway, they low balled me
over at Sony. I'm working for right now. Actually I'm

(12:24):
lucky Hank totally, I'm.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Working for that too.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Sony's great, my favorite people. Yeah, but they totally low
balled me, and so I called my agent and I
was like, that's I mean, our quote is there. I
mean they just have the quote and they're not coming back.
And he goes, well, you know, you got to get
something else and we'll just fight him.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Off and use it as a bargaining.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah. So he goes, there's a show a stand up
if you order Drew Carry and I was like no,
and he goes, well, he did well on this other
stand up show and I don't watch that stand up show.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, And it.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Was such a TV snop if you remember, like I'm
much better now that I have a kids.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
And it's like, you are one of the people that
I would say grew the fuck up since I met them.
I mean you, honestly, I mean you were never you
were always a very nice man, but no, you were,
but like you grew up. It's so patantly obviously when
you had your kids, you're like, oh no, wait a minute, yeah,
resay auck.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Button going on anyway, So I went on the Drew
carry Show pilot and they wanted to test me, so
we put them against one another, and Sony did come
up to my quote, and so did the Drew Carry Show.
But and I just showed up for the test and
I did it like blah blah blah, because my test
for the Sony thing was the same day. So I
just was like, Okay, yeah, this is the morning thing

(13:43):
and then I'm gonna go Like some people would have
a cup of coffee and a shit, and I was like,
I'm going to test for a show.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
But the Drew Carey show was kind of like a
cup of coffee and the ship is the whole idea,
this process, yeah, yeah, the circle of so and then
I went off to the Sony thing.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
And then I didn't get the anything, and I got
the Drew Carry Show. And my agent called me to
tell me I got the Drew Carry Show and I
yelled at him. I was like, what have you done?
That's crazy? And then the show was.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, nine years, it's crazy fucking years. I didn't do
the last year. I didn't do the first year either.
You didn't do the first year? Yeah, I joined after that.
I was going to be in for like three episodes
or so.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
The first year wasn't good, and I hope I'm not
crushing fans of the show, but I really didn't like
the show. I actually tried to get off the show.
In my defense, I had done seven pilots before the
Drew Carry Show, so I thought, I'll just get another
show and I'll be back. Okay, it's image. So yeah,

(14:41):
they didn't let me off, and I wasn't crazy. I
loved Drew and I loved Ryan and Kathy was great,
but I didn't love the scripts. I didn't love my part.
And I thought, this is to speak to what you
were saying about the ambition. I thought, like, I'm a
second banana on a show. I should be the first banana.
And I should get off the show. Bruce didn't let
me off the show, and I'm very grateful for that

(15:02):
because the showrunner.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, the second year of.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
The show was so much better, and that was trapped.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, and also I had arrived and then everything.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
And I'm not joking about that. It actually made the
show happen because you were a great antagonist to him.
What it made his work? Sheer fucking hell.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
You're right. There's more sticks to throw the protagonist than.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
The voiceover thing. It's nothing against Kevin Pollack. He's fantas
he's a great actor. Yeah, he's great. So, but he
was a voice and we saw him at the end
of the first year. It was a dumb gimmick.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Well he was if anyone doesn't know, he was Drew's voice.
He was Drew's boss in the first year of the show,
but you never really saw him.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
It was just on a kind of like speakerphone. That's right.
And then he turned up for the last episode.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
But at that time, and Kevin said this to me himself,
he said, I was too expensive at the time. They
couldn't afford me. So I was doing a lot of movies. Yeah, yeah,
it was a legit movie.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Start at the time.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, I think they offered mister Wick to Hugh Laurie
as well.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Kid, Yeah, I believe so.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I think you said no, I wow, I'm better than that.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
That would have been a mistake. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
I think he'd been pretty good. I don't get me wrong,
he's amazing. Yeah, but I think that that wouldn't have worked.
I think that you were I think personality wise.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
I think for me, the Drew Carey Show was that
its best in that second third fourth.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Those were good years.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, when we were like doing the live episodes and
doing the like big musical numbers and all that.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
But also the episode that you were talking about, the
full Monty episode, that's a that's an excellent.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's a great episode.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yeah, it's really not scene when we're all on the
couch and you come in and you talk about your
addiction to the ponies and Oswald thinks that you sleep
with ponies.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
It's very good.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
It's memory John carol Lynch and Drew dancing to the
Heart music to Windy as well. It's like and but
there you look at John carro Lynch as well, that
guy who's going on to like.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Direct these like serious movies and he's.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Like, big, and you've done that too, You you carved
a legitimate career after after the after the show, I think,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, it's true.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I mean, but none of us were part of that
kind of whose lyne improv world.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
I mean, Ryan did it. It was kind of Ryan
and Drew really or.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Who's like really Ryan? Yeah, well he was funny because
he laughed, and.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
It was funny because he laughed and he liked being
around everybody doing it, and he's genuinely fun guy. Yes,
he's a nice guy. But Ryan's the improv genius. Oh
my god, he's a genius. Yeah, he's truly incredible. No,
they asked me to do the show a number of times.
I'm sure they asked you. No, I don't really, I
don't think they ever did, or maybe they asked me
to do it once.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
I don't know. Sure. I like, because I'm Scott, I
like to go.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
They never asked me, and they left it, but I
don't think they did, and they probably.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
But I think they probably did ask me.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, i'd be shocked.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
What I don't know? I was.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I was never that comfortable and weirdly enough for what
I did later on. I was very uncomfortable with improv,
very uncomfortable with that group improv.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
I always felt I can't.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Really do it is a different beast it is.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, I mean, did you like? Did you like the
experience of doing it?

Speaker 3 (18:28):
One of my favorite parts about acting is knowing what
I'm going to say?

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, isn't that great?

Speaker 3 (18:32):
I love it?

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to say right now. Yeah,
and so it's a little unnerving.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
But if you get to practice what you're going to
say a high voice, do it.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
This is actually saying seeing what you're actually saying as
opposed to what you're saying. All of that, all text analysis,
all that kind of stuff you can really dive into
that doesn't happen in life. Like we just blurted out.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
I think I think I just realized why you've done
so well as an actor because you say what it's
like text analysis and stuff like, I'm.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Like, oh god, he's a fucking real actor.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
He's a proper actor that does things. Hello, this is
Greig Ferguson, and I want to let you know I
have a brand new stand up comedy special out now
on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy and I would
be so happy if you checked it out.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
To watch the special.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Just go to my YouTube channel at the Craig Ferguson
Show and is this right there?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Just click it and play it and it's free. I
can't look.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
I'm not going to come around your house and show
you how to do it. If you can't do it,
then you can't have it. But if you can figure
it out, it's yours. I've trained you you had Did
you train? Yes?

Speaker 3 (19:42):
Where did you go and train? I went to North
Carolina School the Arts. That's that's Winston. That's pretty fancy,
isn't it. It's fancy dancy. Yeah, it's fancy.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (19:51):
So?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Did you come to Hollywood straight after that? Or did
you go to a theater?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
I was going to go into theater, and then I
got a pilot in between my sophomore and junior year,
a Western. We were on vacation in Santa Fe, met
a casting director to dinner party. Short story, long story short.
I got cast in this pilot and then in western,
in a Western.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
My fucking dream. It was reallystern.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Honest to god, I was going to be a stage
actor before that time, but it was so much fun.
To dress up like a cowboy. Yeah, And that was
Sag and a lot of my friends that had graduated,
who I thought were much more talented than myself, that
were in New York and trying to be stage actors.
They're having a very hard time and it's.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Very difficult the stage world, I think, so it even
work it is.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
My father's idea was that I move out here because
I'm already Sag, go like Solin, to a five year
plan and then move to New York if it doesn't
work out. And I thought that was a pretty good idea,
So I did that.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
So your dad, who's this very interesting government figure, was
cool with your going on at show.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
But this idea, it was his idea for me to
drop out of North Carolina School the arts and just
get started. See he he was kind of out the
box thinker then, wasn't he.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, And I think he knew me. Yeah, and he
knew that I was going to be on I mean,
you know his thing when you know, when he brought
up the idea, he said, you know, you've got a
job at a dinner party. I think he'll be okay.
And then he paid my rent for the first two
years which really really helped that does how So, Yeah,
because I didn't need to get a straight job. I
worked enough where I could feed myself. This is after

(21:20):
the first three or four months when I tried to
make it completely on my own and I had trouble
at the beginning. I got a job in two weeks,
my second pilot, but I went through the money really
really fast because I thought I was made. I thought
I paid my dues. It'd been two weeks. Yeah, you
know that. That's a common thing though.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
He used to say, like the best time to buy
a house in la is just after the TV season
starts and shows get start getting canceled and the actors
who thought that they were going to be Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
No, I just burnt through it.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
And you know, I bought every type of thing that
you could put into your body, and as.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
You know, like you run out the money really quick.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yeah, but you were never like a druggiarron weed and
a lot of booze.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
I never even saw you with much in the way
we know, like the way weed is now, like the
entire smells.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Like weed all the time. I know. Well, I just
shot in Vancouver. The Vancouver is so much weed. Like
I smelled cigarette smoke and I was like, what the
hell is that?

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
It's like it's like a flashback when you smell just tobacco.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah I know. I mean New York smells like weed.
Most of LA smells like weed.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Chicago, Denver, Yeah, oh my god, that's just like you
can get high just going there.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
So you Gela and you're like the reason that you
didn't see it is that I quit. I had told
Dulcie when we first Real Life to go my wife
of twenty six years, it's.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Going to say, you guys get married.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
When we were doing Drew carry right right, and yeah,
between the first.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Second and things in the third season, Yeah, she wanted
me to quit. And that was basically like if we
go forward, because I smoked a lot, She's just like
put her.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
It was basically like she's a very sensible person.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, I'll see I always it's very one of those
I mean, look, you're married, you know better than me.
But she always seemed to me with someone who had
their ship together. It was kind of like an impressive
kind of organized.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
More than anyone else has has helped me with my
career because of just not just being encouraging, but also
pushing me in a way and disciplining me. See.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I think that that is very important in her career
because I was much more scatter show and much more
ambitious until I.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Met Megan, who we've been together eighteen years and and.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
You knew me before that, And all I could think
of was the success must be it must be success,
and success is a big hit and money. It's not
career fulfillment. It's not there's no other sight. It's a
two dimensional thing and so one or a zero. And
I understand that though. Yeah, I think for young people,
I think it's okay. I think and also it's it's

(23:58):
what Hollywood tells you.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, there was somebody I talked to. I think it
was Peter Medak. Do you know the director Peter Meadow.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
I know his name, Peter.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
He directed a lot of episodes of The Wire. Yeah,
but he made he made a couple of great movies,
a movie about the craze, and he made a movie
called The Ruling Class with Peter ro'tool back the Yeah,
that's a great movie, fantastic. That's his first movie. Yeah, ok, yeah,
and he forget he talks talks like, you know, it's
sort of well for my purposes, he talks like a

(24:28):
you know, an old Nazi from nineteen fifties movie. He
doesn't talk like this at all, but that sort of
version of this. Okay, He's like, well, you know, see
it's the singer's clerk. You know, the movie Twister makes
one hundred and fifty million dollars, so movie Fanny and Alexander.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Makes I don't know what fifty dollars.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Therefore, the movie Twister is a better movie than Fanny
and Alexander. Yes, oh no, of course they answer is no, and.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
You get that. I like guys like that. I like
guys like that. Who who ca to see it?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
And I think that that comes with age and experience
and wearing the hat and not wearing the hat.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
So that's right. Yeah, do you've the best Yeah, if
you have a career where you have worn the hat
and then you don't wear the hat, and then somebody
gives you the hat again, Yeah, and that's when you're
really appreciative of the Hat's.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Next to have it back. Yeah, I think of it.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
It's kind of like the Sean Connery Czar doors.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, we bring it up all the time.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
But that's like Sean Connery, Yeah and yeah, he's in
a MANKINI. At one point he must have been thinking,
what the fucking what happened? Well, the fucking MANKINI fucking Now.
I know that some people love the movie Outdoors, but
I don't think Sean loved it. We were talking about
Sean Connery the other day. We totally were right, because

(25:46):
when did you me him? I met him at an
award saying he was getting a lifetime award. This is
during the right before.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
The Hillbillies came out, and I had a publicist because
it felt like I should right understand. So I went
to a bunch of parties and one of them was
this award that he was given, and Maria Brown told
the story about the director of the name of the Rose,
who was supposedly very abusive to basically everybody and the
crew and the actors and really just awful and would

(26:13):
lose his shit continually, which is really a terrible thing
for him.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Terrible thing.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
You're the one who's supposed to be in control. That's
the idea. You're not allowed that he really shouldn't. But anyway,
Connor said nothing through the entire time to this guy.
He just did his job and he talked to the actor.
He was fine, but he just did his job. He
didn't say anything to the director. And then the director
took a big stick and was about to hit a
horse that he wasn't doing what he wanted the horse

(26:38):
to do right, and Connory grabbed his wrist and pushed
it down, and you could tell that the director really
was like fighting. But Connorie is a big fella universe. Yeah,
so he's holding him down and he goes, not the
horse fuck line you just yeah, okay, just right.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Away, mister. I was telling you my wife.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
We had only been dating a short period of time
and I had to give an award to shown at
something Holly would do. He was getting them every every week,
and I was giving him this award. I gave him
the award and then we get introduced afterwards, and Meghan's
wearing her dress and went over and I said yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
He said, creg gets very nice to me. Yes, thanks
for the all that was very pleasant what you shared,
Thank you, And I said, thank you very much, Sewing.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
This is my wife, Meghan, and he said, very nice
to meet you.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Megan and her tits blush physically, I don't even know
that tits could blush.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
She she just went oh and they lit up like
it was fucking Halloween.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
Like I didn't even know these things could do that. Well,
they don't do it for you, but that's Sean.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
I was like, oh my god, he could make women
sweats blush.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, that's that's that's quite a sky. He was fucking great.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yeah for me, he was.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
He and Belly Corny were kind of like the Jackie
Robinson thank you, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (28:03):
What for you was what did you watch when you
were a kid, And you go, I want a piece
of that. I want I want to be able to
do that.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
My origin story is that we were living in Paris.
My dad was a European matress. We were living in Paris.
We were he was a European representative for the Ford Foundation.
This is shortly after he brought down Robert McNamara. He
was told to basically get out of town.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Not only can you not have the hat, but you
better get the fuck out of him for a while.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah you really lost the hat. Yeah just rolled down
the street. You're not going to go that hat. He
ended up being fine, but but yes, that we he
was definitely out. But anyway, I basically just learned English
I was little, and then there was French, right, and
so I was really deeply alienated by the whole thing

(28:48):
and kind of a troubled little kid, little loner, weird kid.
At this point, I am about three and a half four,
three and a half four, okay, and my mom paid
were my siblings to take me to the movies, and
I very quickly figured out that that was the deal,
because my sister would bring all over stone friends and
they would, you know, we would go see Freda Stare movies,

(29:10):
which I totally love. But I really loved Charlie Chaplin.
How interesting, and there was something about the combination of
the path I was, the physical comedy and just the
warmth that I really love the sweetness. Now, a lot
of people think it's too Treaquily. Buster Keaton is probably
for the hardcore fans, and I'm a huge fan. Don't
get me wrong. For the hardcore fan, he's just comedy.

(29:31):
It's it's very little sentiment. But for me, I love
the sentiment. Yeah, I was a little kid, you know,
and the first one I saw it was the kid
so I was like, this.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Guy this is and I could hang with this guy
because he hangs out with kids and soaked up.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
My little I worked up a little Charlie Chaplin act
in my room in our apartments, and then I guess
about a year later, we went to the theater. My
fake auntie Auntie sure took me and I was my
fake you know, my mom, but anyway, she took me.
This one theater that I loved the most because there
was a live musical accompaniment. The guy improvised music to

(30:05):
whatever was playing. And it was my favorite because it
was just like being in the theater in the original.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
It's weird because it, I mean, this sounds like you
grew up in the nineteen twenties.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
It's just like this is what nineteen seventies. Seventy yeah, yeah, yeah, seventies.
Someone room there.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
Anyway, So the film burned, got caught and burned, it
went on fire, yeah, and everybody booed, and the lights
came back on, and I ran in between the audience
and the screen because nobody boos Charlie Chaplin. Like I
just wasn't going to allow that to happen. So I
jumped in between and I did my little Charlie Chaplin,

(30:42):
the organ player played.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
And you did it for the audience. I did it
for the audience and the French audience that's fan and
were the good. They love you. I got a standing ovation. Jesus,
that is so great. Now, I think we have to
make a movie of your life because that is such
a good.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
N't you think it's crazy? It's lovely, Yeah, it's funny. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Do you actually have memory of it?

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I mean, I you know, there's so many questions about
recovered memory. I actually did recover this memory by watching Chaplain,
the biopic with Robert Downey Junior. There is a scene
in it where his mother, who was played by Charlie
Chaplin's actual daughter, Geraldine Chaplin in the movie, plays her
own grandmother, grandmother who has a nervous breakdown on stage.

(31:29):
When Chaplain himself is about three or four. It's right,
she was very ill and anyway, she had a nervous
breakdown on stage and everybody started a boo, and he thought,
no one is going to boo my mother. So he
jumped on stage and started doing a panamime act. Because
he had no act. It was the only thing that
he can think of. And I was sitting in the

(31:51):
theater and I was like, shefu.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
That's amazing, that's amazing. I remember, and your family remember it. Yeah,
that's crazy. Yeah, but typical of my family. Like I
called my mom. I was crying.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
I called my mom and yeah, I just want to
check something because I had this incredibly powerful experience. It
was like an epiphany for me, and I just want
to double check and make sure that it actually happened
and that I wasn't making it up. And she went, oh, yes, yeah, yeah,
And I go, did you ever think about telling me that?

Speaker 1 (32:24):
She was like, oh, yeah, you know that?

Speaker 3 (32:25):
And yeah, Auntie, sure she took you. And I go, yeah,
that's right, Yeah, that's right, I thought. She goes, yes,
says no, that happened.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Do you know this story about chaplain And Michael Okay
and Michael Caine told me this story, which is what
they were both from the area the Elephant and Castle
in London, like a very poor slum area in London,
and in the nineteen late nineteen sixties or seventies they
were knocking down it must have been of the seventies, actually,
they were knocking down the Elephant and Castle the area

(32:52):
in London.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
It was called that because it was it was in
the Middle Ages.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
It was called lane Font de Castille, but the Londoners
couldn't pronounce that's an elephant castle.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Oh, that's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
And it was a children. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
So they were knocking down this area and Michael, who
grew up there, was walking around it, and you know,
he thought, I'll go and see it before they knock
it down. So very early in the morning when Sunday's
walking around the elephant castle, it's all kind of deserted
and stuff. And he comes around the corner and fucking
Charlie Chaplin is there, old man. And he said, mister Chaplin,

(33:28):
what are you doing here? I can't do Charlie, Charlie chatlerman.
But and then you came up. But he said, well,
I thought i'd come around to look at the old
neighborhood before they knocked it down. And the two of them,
there's something wonderful about that two huge, huge god and

(33:50):
from obviously very different eras.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, but still but then walking around together sharing a
childhood sounds really fascinating.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
They both of these people, And this is kind of
where I want to lead you a little bit is
that both of these people.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
For me, I never met Chaplin.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
I presume you didn't either, But I've met and spent
time with Michael Kaine, who is a fucking diamond of
a human being.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
He's just amazing.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
And what's great about is that he's one of the
few people I've met that retains the mistake. I know
how films are made, I've made them, You've made him
moving on him, I know how the sausage is made,
but he keeps the glamour. I wondered for you, is
there still an area of this business because you've I mean,

(34:35):
you've really proved yourself in this game. Is there still
any kind of like, you know, the feeling you used
to get when you you would see the star's handprints.
That used to I used to kind of get that,
and I don't anymore. I'm like, yeah, it's the guy
Pin's end in concrete.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Dan't Mater. You hear stories about people. Is there anyone
who still does it?

Speaker 3 (34:54):
For you? Did I get starstruck or that I'm just.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Any starstruck or just retains the mistake?

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Who kind of still has the glamour on either personally
or or But I'm thinking more.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Personally, like interacting with people. No.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
No, it's funny though, isn't that. No, I have yet
to see the glamour of this business. I too, totally
worshiped it from an outsider's perspective. I used to go
to Men's Chinese when I had a particularly intense audition
before I would go, and I would stand in Jimmy
Stewart's shoe prints at Man's Chinese and just, you know,

(35:30):
look up at this guy says, show me the magic.
To show me the magic. Yeah, because he was my
favorite of the speaking actors. Yeah, this is so called
talking if that little Cato never. But I have yet
to see glamour. I mean, one moment I think was
fairly ground glamorous in early screenings of Miscongeniality Too. I

(35:52):
went to with AlSi I should say. We went to
a theater way out in like Glendale or something. I
can't quite remember right now, but anyway, we went up
to where the projectors were right because that's where Sandy was.
And there was Sandra Bullock in the middle of the
room on her phone looking amazing. I'm like a star,

(36:13):
waiting for the lights to go down so she could
join the audience, and I think that was the one
moment where I was like, that's actually pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, it's funny that I it does go away.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, because it's just a lot of desperate people trying
to work. I just went you know, what did it
to me was late night.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Oh, because every night you met everybody, giant star comes in. No,
every night, but a lot of times giant stars come in.
Giant stars come in, Giant stars come in, and the
douche to manche ratio is the same as anywhere else
in the world.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
World.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, it's just like, oh yeah, some guys douches, some
guys manes and that's just the way it is.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
But there are people, for me Stell who kind of
transcend it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Okay, who's that Well, Robin Williams did that for me
a little bit. Even although we be came friendly, there
was still like there's it seemed to me he had
a magic. Maybe it's genius. Maybe that's what it is.
It's not really about glamour and show business, but it's about.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
The next level of real talent.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, or when you see somebody doing a thing like
every now and again, I would see that I could
even do I could do and I'm not saying I
could even do it with you, but I can.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Do it with you.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Like there were times when I would like when I
was watching BoJack, when you turned up in BoJack as
the agent's assistant, I was like, Oh, that's fucking gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
And it was great. It was good.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
I mean that show for me, I'm such a fan
of that show, really great. It's a very dark, strange ride.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, and I don't think there's been a darker comedy.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah. I mean, who was it you were working with
on that.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Bob the creator of the show, and I did a
show together called Save Me Right that was a total
piece of shit okay, And he knew it at the time,
and I knew it at the time, but he couldn't
say anything. But I just talked about it all the time.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
So he appreciated that, yeah, and couldn't wait to get.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
You into it when he had his own shoe. Then
he brought me in and he was like, your candor
was so like refreshing that there was somebody who knew
that they were on a piece of ship while they
were in it.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
And it was one of those shows BoJack. I thought
that you lived in terror of your name turning up
in it?

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Has he skewered everybody?

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah? I mine dead? Oh really yeah. I was watching
it one day.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I was like, I think it's like it's deep into
the season with BoJack's way of face, and the.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Reporters are looking for BoJack.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
And they go to an AA meeting.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, and they say have you seen any celebrities and
a meet and soyes, I thought, Craig.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
And then the reports that trying to be swanked by
association are you? And I was like, that was good.
That was good.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yeah for a boat, especially since you're not anonymous. You're recovering,
and you're pretty clear about it about it.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
But the AA thing is anonymous. I don't, I can't,
and you wouldn't of course.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
But what I mean is that that he picked the
one like he was in recovery. He was up.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Then there was a there was a whole bunch of
people left on as well. He just ran a less
than a fucking dishbag. Fucking celebrities that have gotten sober,
me included, and and I kind of loved it. But
as as a skewing, it wasn't bad, and it was
it wasn't a skewing at all. Okay, I think if

(39:49):
you're an actor, the way you were an actor, which
I admire greatly, is that I don't see you being
you everywhere.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Well, I don't think of me anywhere. I hope not.
I'm really trying to be somebody else every time. I
work really hard at that, in breaking up my own
rhythms and tried to pick up the rhythm of the
with the writing. I really work hard on that. I mean,
that's why, I mean some people don't even know I'm
in Napoleon Dynamite because yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
God, have you still those pants?

Speaker 3 (40:21):
Everybody else? My one regret in show business is that
I there the greatest.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
I picked them out of a lineup.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Jerushe, who was also the co writer but was the
wife of Jared the director, was also the costume director. Right,
that's a small She showed me three different pairs of
pants and I was like, they are amazing.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
So, but is that a thing that you do when
it comes to like publicity because you're you're happy you
said here and this is you.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
I know you?

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen you do a ton of
like you did my talk show.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
See I you do a ton of them. Do you
do it purpose?

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Are you not so into I mean, it's strange to
say this as an actor, but I'm not so into
talking about myself. I'd not rather talk about a specific project.
And if I do that, then Twitter has kind of
changed this, Like I feel like I you're quite present
on that. Also, it is a side of me. It's
it's the funnier side, the kind of goofy your side.

(41:24):
But sometimes I open up about the things that I'm
actually feeling. But most of the time I try to
be light in airy. I try to be a positive force, right,
and in Twitter that's particularly difficult because it's a it's
a dark place.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
It is.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
It is a dark place. It used to be. It
is funny.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
I was talking to Josh Robert Thompson recently about who's
the guy who did the robot and the old late
night shows fucking genius, Yeah, and he was we were
talking about how early on Twitter was was kind of great.
It was fun, it was great light and it went
very dark and I think probably it was the politics
of twenty sixteen and that kind of Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
I think I think appreciated that a little bit. But
I think as you were alluding to earlier. It's it's
the ratio, and you know, you get a lot of
responses from being negative, and so people tend to be
more negative. I think, just to get the attention. They
equate negative attention and positive attentions.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Being the same way. Yeah, I don't do that, No, No,
it's so strong. Negative attention is deeply stressed.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Well, because we're performers, right, so there's a part of
us that wants the audience to lat We want that love, right.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's also that if they don't like you and you're
out of business exactly.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
And it's also like if we were to stand on
sedge and people were to literally boo and we got
the same feeling out of that, that would be.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Strength, that would be that would be thank you so much,
Oh bless you all for coming him thrive Gabbages.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Obviously this is if it was a visual medium, I
would have thrown a cabbage.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Garbages.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
What about directing?

Speaker 3 (43:03):
Oh, sometimes I think about it, but other times I'm
just so satisfied with.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
What I do. I think I'd like you to think
about it more than really.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, because you have a very good personality for it,
I mean even talking about it. Like, first of all,
you're positive, and you also you see things and you
do things like text analysis, which a lot of fucking
directors could do well doing that. But I think also
you have this thing. I'm going to do a massive
name drop right now. Fantastic.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
All right.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
So I was directing this movie, yeah, and I did
a very bad job on it. But I was talking
to Warren Beatty before I At lunch we wore in
Beata boom, yeah, yeah, there it goes. And at lunch
we wore in Beatty because somebody had set us up
at lunch so he could help me because I was
in the movie and I was directing the movie, and
so he was.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
I said, I need to talk to guys supposed to
be astonishingly bright. He's amazing and clever.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Man, that's what it's on every waitress that serves fucking ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
It's like it's it's just crazy. I don't think he
even knows he's doing it.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Is like, you know, you look fabulous, that this is
the greatest omelet I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I was like, I forgot but shame unbelievable. I like,
I don't even know, I don't even know. I don't
think he is hitting on these people. I think he's
just so.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Kind of just as charmingly anyway, whatever it is. But
he he was talking about directing. The number one thing
he said, don't try and impress anyone. The less you say,
the more they're going to be impressed, he said, because
they turn everybody turns up when the movie set, and
they've all got a call sheet. And on that call

(44:42):
sheet is written bold type right at the top director
and then your name, So they're already impressed. All that's
going to happen is you're going to disappoint like ah,
And I think that you. I wouldn't have said this
about you when we were doing the Drew Carries.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
I was out of control.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
You weren't out control. You were younger, yeah, and and
you were a nice guy.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
And I don't I I will, you know, I don't
want to hold with any idea that there's anything wrong.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
It was none wrong with yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
But you clearly are a human being who's made a transit,
who grew up. And I think that you have stories
to tell. And even when you when you told the
story of you as a little kid in Paris. That's
fain better visual. We think about it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
I will all right.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Well, so when you're making your movie, I would like
to be angry Parishian these kidd move.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
I think it would be fine. I think I could
do it. I could throw a mustache. It depends. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
So but just acting then you don't you don't see
it as a well, that's the wrong thing.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
I don't mean just acting you Oh, I know what
you're saying, right, Yeah, No, I mean I find my
job very complex and it never gets easy in a
way where I kind of stop thinking about it. I
find every day interesting. And you know, I'm on this
new show called Lucky hank And with Bubble Kirk and

(46:12):
an incredible cast. Right, and we did one episode, episode five,
where we were all together. It's a bottle episode. For
those people that aren't in show business, it's basically when
the show the studio tells you that we have no
more money, and so they do an episode where everybody's
caught together. Right, episodes, snowed in episode or something. You'll
see it on TV shows all the time. In show business,

(46:33):
they are called bottle episodes. That's just the short thing.
So the writers of Lucky. Hank were exceptionally good. Had
all of these characters out in the show in the
first four episodes, and they were kind of like just
a lot of strings, and you didn't know if Hank
was the thing that pulled it together or why they

(46:54):
were necessarily connected. And in this one episode they just
pulled the string and they realized is that it's been
there the entire time, and it pulls everyone together with them.
And there's a scene where it's twelve pages at a
table and it's a long time, very long time.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
It's like twenty five minutes.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Yeah, And so we're just sitting there talking and it
reinvigorated my sense of my profession and the beauty of
it in one day. It was so beautiful to see
all these actors interact and create something new every single take,

(47:34):
to push each other but also push the reality of
what we're making it deeper and deeper every take. And
one of the things that drives me completely bonkers about
those that don't take our mutual profession seriously is when
they're off camera and they stop acting, it drives me
completely bonkers, like I would prefer you not to be

(47:55):
there and I can act to tape, And I have
asked for this before because actors will just like, you know,
they're just going that long or whatever.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
The camera's on someone, cameras on the other actor.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
They're sitting off camera, and four looks basically so that
your look looks like but they're they're not acting, and
they barely know their lines or they don't know their
lines and they're just reading it. It's so distracting. Yeah,
that I would prefer to have a piece of tape
and I have the script supervisor read, and I will
look at something that it's like, you're the best actor ever.

(48:28):
I will make you look good an honest god, but
don't be here right now because you're not.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Doing it right.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
And this ensemble with Bob as the lead, every single
take was great, even when it was coverage of like,
you know, just one person had two cameras on them
and it was their close up and there are ten
actors in the scene. Everybody acted their heart out.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Bob was crying off camera. Yeah, that's that's just a waste.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Of He had already done his close up, but somehow
he tapped into something and he just kept going it,
just kept tapping into it right and it was he
was just one hundred percent there and everyone was right there.
It felt magical.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
But that's part of the attraction.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Like at the very beginning for a lot of people,
I think is the collegiate band Brothers Fields right of
what it's like to be in an ensemble cast. That's
exactly right. When you and I were talking going back
to those early days of the Drew Carey Show, that
second season, third fourth season run about that period, maybe
the episode twenty five to episode of one hundred, there

(49:31):
was a time when I think we were in that space.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
I completely agree with it, and that I think we
lost it probably about mid fifth season and then and
then we were just doing a job. But for those
it's like the rock and roll movies when they, you know,
the band gets together and then they have their peak
hits and they're really great, and then they just keep playing.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah, and they keep.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Playing, and then they're playing in the then the inevitable happens. Yeah,
the drum is always kind of but when it's good,
it's really beautiful. You're like, oh, this is rock and roll.
This is really good. If one person is off, the
band is off, right, But when they're all together, it
all clicks.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think that that's kind of odd.
Even as a viewer when you watch shows, you can
see like there are shows that just come out of
the gate and they're amazing, and then you know, season ten,
they're like, you know, really when they introduced was it
the sentence dead the dog with sunglasses on theboard, like, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
But I think that there is a kind of lie.
Carrie Fisher used to say this.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
I think it was a brilliant thing to say, amongst
many brilliant things that she was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Did you know her?

Speaker 3 (50:50):
I knew a little bit.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, she was very much for me. When the Late
Night Show started. I had just written a book and
she read it and.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
She American on purpose. No before that.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
It was a novel I wrote called Between the Bridge
and the River and it was a kind of magical
realist thing and I was like, it's never going to
make any money or anything like that, but I really
wanted to write it. Yeah, coo, And she read it
and she was very positive about it and really kind
of introduced me in a way to Hollywood that hadn't
been before. She was just amazingly supportive. Wow, she did
that for tons of people. That's so cool. Like she

(51:23):
had this kind of like artists colony at her house
and you would go up and you'd meet like I
met the weirdest people. I'm like a Courtney Love up
there and all you med like not the courney Love.
But she has a little weird I think I would
say that she was here, but I don't think that's
a big surprise. But I just met a lot of
a wild array of different people and lovely. But she

(51:45):
said when I put on that metal bikini when I
was twenty four, I didn't realize I was making a
pact with the universe to look like that for the
rest of my life.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
And I you know, it was like it's a moment
in time. Why can't you let it be that? You know?

Speaker 2 (52:04):
And I think that with a sitcom when it all
comes together, or a movie that all comes together, that
that's why you know, when people talk about a I
am like, it doesn't frighten me because you know, because
it's still got there's too much A for the eye tomorrow,
you know what I'm fucking mean.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
It's like why is it? You know, like Papa's been
around a very long time. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
That you know this is going to be funny because
the robot says it's funny.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Good fucking luck. Robot.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Whitney Balier says, the jazz is the sound of surprise,
and that's fucking great. I would say the comedy.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Is that, and Robin Williams used to say that good
comedy was jazz.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
No, there we go, Phil, You're a joy.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
It is beautiful to talk to you, man, more power
to I'm really looking forward to seeing Lucky Hank.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Thanks you well done.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
The bar paper for Poper