October 7, 2025 • 48 mins
Gary Anthony Williams talks about his remarkable ability to fit in when he wants to, how growing up poor in Georgia gave him optimism for everything else, how he got skinny, the connection between skinning rabbits and vegetarianism, how he’s uncomfortable at a party yet makes strangers comfortable at coffee shops, falling into acting through computer error, how nerds are his people, and how it’s still shocking he makes a living acting and being funny.
Bio: Gary Anthony Williams' film credits include "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," "The Internship," "Undercover Brother," "Soul Plane," “Outlaw Johnny Black” and "The Factory." An accomplished voice actor, Williams is best known for voicing Uncle Ruckus on "The Boondocks." Additional voiceover credits include the newly released shows “Batman: Caped Crusader,” “Wondla” and “The Second Best Hospital In The Galaxy.” Other shows include "The Lion Guard," “Hailey’s On It!,” "Star Wars Resistance," Puppy Dog Pals," "Love, Death & Robots," "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," "Bob's Burgers," "Rick and Morty," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "Rugrats,” and "Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur "On television, Williams just wrapped the reboot of “Malcolm In the Middle!” He currently recurs in “Night Court.” He also starred in "The Crew," "Reno 911! The Hunt for QAnon," and as Santa in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Christmas…Again?!" His additional television credits include "I'm Sorry," "Whose Line is it Anyway?," "Boston Legal," "Blue Collar TV," "The Neighborhood," "The Soul Man," and "Weeds." He is also the voice of the award-winning music show "Unsung." Gary tours the country with “Whose Live Anyway” and is a proud member of the all-Black improv show, "The Black Version." Born in Fayetteville, Georgia, Williams currently resides in Los Angeles.
Bio: Gary Anthony Williams' film credits include "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," "The Internship," "Undercover Brother," "Soul Plane," “Outlaw Johnny Black” and "The Factory." An accomplished voice actor, Williams is best known for voicing Uncle Ruckus on "The Boondocks." Additional voiceover credits include the newly released shows “Batman: Caped Crusader,” “Wondla” and “The Second Best Hospital In The Galaxy.” Other shows include "The Lion Guard," “Hailey’s On It!,” "Star Wars Resistance," Puppy Dog Pals," "Love, Death & Robots," "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," "Bob's Burgers," "Rick and Morty," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "Rugrats,” and "Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur "On television, Williams just wrapped the reboot of “Malcolm In the Middle!” He currently recurs in “Night Court.” He also starred in "The Crew," "Reno 911! The Hunt for QAnon," and as Santa in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Christmas…Again?!" His additional television credits include "I'm Sorry," "Whose Line is it Anyway?," "Boston Legal," "Blue Collar TV," "The Neighborhood," "The Soul Man," and "Weeds." He is also the voice of the award-winning music show "Unsung." Gary tours the country with “Whose Live Anyway” and is a proud member of the all-Black improv show, "The Black Version." Born in Fayetteville, Georgia, Williams currently resides in Los Angeles.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawut Media. Hi. Gary Anthony Williams, also the voice of
Anka Rock I sound abone doc No. I love All
White Man, especially that damn Jay Cogan. Yes, too bad,
he wish don't be alone with JJ Cogan.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey, don't be a owners. It's I know you don't
call yourself that. I am a fully aware no one
calls himself a don't be a loner, but I'm saying
it anyway. Just live with it, Live with it.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
This is Jay Cogan and you're listening to or watching
Don't be Alone with Ja Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I'm really pleased to have you here. We have
a really great show. I get to spend time with
somebody today who I don't spend a lot of time with.
This guy, Gary Anthony Williams. He is an actor, he's
a writer, he's a very famous voiceover guy. Uh and uh.
He's been a very important person than the improv community
(01:01):
for many many years. And Gary and I come from
two completely different places, in two completely different worlds. But
we see i'd I take it back. They don't see
eye to eye.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
We vibe.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Does that make sense? It's different than seeing eydeye? We
vibe together? What is it about us that vibes? And
I had an idea about what it is, which is
Gary has the ability to fit in everywhere he goes.
First of all, he's really nice, really smart, But second
of all, he's very attentive to how who people are,
how they sound, the world he's looking at, and I
(01:37):
respect that about him. That's something that I try to
do out of my own insecurity, Like I would like
to when I enter a room, I'd like to fit
into the people in the room, because all my life
I've always felt like I don't fit in. So I
try to find out what the room's about and be
part of that room. And it's a survival technique, I think.
(01:58):
So I'm going to ask Gary about his technique about
fitting in because he's really good at it and I'd
like to be better at it. But before we get
to that, I want to encourage you to like the show,
subscribe to the show, share this show, go to the
substack that we're creating that has bonus material for Don't
Be Alone with Ja Cogan. I think it's under j Cogan,
(02:20):
Jyko g En and write me at dbajk at gmail
dot com with all your suggestions your criticisms, your comments,
and most importantly, your listener mail. I got to have
the listener mail otherwise I can't do the listener mail segment.
What am I going to do? Just sit there and
have silence for five minutes? No, I need your listener questions.
(02:41):
But if you like the show and a lot of
people are liking the show, I really appreciate it. I
know Ryan, producer, Ryan would appreciate it. I mean that's
all he does is he sits and paces back and
forth worrying about who's liking the show. So like the show,
subscribe to the show, share the show, and we'll be
right back with a really good one with Gary Anthony Williams.
(03:02):
Don't be alone with Gary Anthony Williams. Thank you for
being here.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
This is I'm gonna be honest. This is maybe the
third best day of my life.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Wow, Yeah, what is what's one and two?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I don't know. I'm just saying maybe my child being
born was a great day, right, I don't know what
the others are? Your son, Okay, yeah, I don't know
what the others are, So this might be the third day.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, I'm I'm I'm thriller here, I I wanted you
here for a couple of reasons. One is, I'm a
fan of your work and I'm a fan of yours.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Let's just be honest. I've done so much that you've enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Like all the in his everything I have, I've never
had a miss.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It's not I didn't ever say that it's not everything,
but I did. I said it's fine, and you can
think that.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Please allow me to speak to you on this one.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But here's the thing. You're very, very funny. You're funny
in a in a way that our group of friends
speak like you speak. You speak a language that improvisers speak,
that comedians speak, that actors speak. You speak this language
that not everybody speaks. Like what you just did when
(04:19):
you made fun of you of the very premise of
the thing. I said, immediately made fun of it.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I was agreeing with you. I'm sorry if it sounded
like I was making sense.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That's an agree agreeing, but adding humor to it is
part of the language.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Let us agree to disagree that we're.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
If we sat in a different environment and somebody said something,
we'd have to go Yes, you're right, of course, and
but but we're not in that environment. And the reason
I'm grateful for that is I like the environment we
live in. I liked the jokey environment. I like people
enjoying themselves. I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I I do think that most I like super smart people,
and I like super funny people, and I do think
that a lot of people live in that environment. A
buddy of mine just came to town for like some
not good reasons, and that was the first time we've
ever just spoken to each other about something serious. And
he said himself, I just realized we've literally never had
(05:19):
a serious conversation. The two of us were newer friends.
He's just this this dude who's just ridiculously funny and
has never done anything with that.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, but you and I are not friends.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
In fact, we're very close to enemies.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
No, no, no, we are acquaintances. You and I are friends.
Is However, every time I've come across you, I felt
a kinship. So this is this is what I'm saying
when when one of the reasons I've sought you out
and said, hey, how can I get you on the podcast?
Is because when when we sat with the I Guess
(05:55):
with Steve Rudnick and talking about comedy. He was filming
a movie about, oh, heavy people or something like that.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what was I can't remember the name
of it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I don't either, and then or outside of the black
version or I'm talking to you like it's there's a
simpatico there that makes me think, oh, you're a very
close friend of mine.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I mean, what's stopping us from right now just shaking
hands and just admitting friendship?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
What stopped to hear this?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Hey, hey, friend, look at that?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And then we're gonna go up for chili dogs right after.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh, I can't wait for a nice vegan chili dog
vegan low car. See there's the friendship walk just over
you know, right, Jacogan?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Exactly right, exactly. Part of Don't Be Alone with Jake
Cogan My Lovely podcast is I have people on here
who I want to talk to and get to know better,
nice and or people I know really well. I don't
want to talk again. But I also have a problem
that needs to be solved.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Oh, I hope it's got something to do with gardening.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's not gardening. It's not gardening. It's something called code switching. Yeah,
all right, So you speak many different languages. I do
and you speak I mean, and I'm not saying French
and Russian, but I'm saying that you can be integrated
into any kind of group. Yeah, and you can find
(07:16):
your way to be amongst any group of people and
make yourself feel at home. Yes, all right, that's that's
a great I gift.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I think I come by it honestly.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I grew up in the deep, deep, deep deep South,
and it was the deep, deep, deep deep deep South.
Then it's less now. And my parents Georgia in Georgia, Intville,
Georgia and Georgia. And my parents were both older, so
there my dad was born in twenty three and my
mother was born in thirty two.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So when you were born, your dad was already forty.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Maybe three six. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, he was in his forties.
And then I have a sister eight years younger, Okay,
then me. Uh, there's there were six girls, three boys
in the house.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
With all those children, you must have parents were to
be very rich.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The extremely rich, to the point of we grew our
own food and slaughtered our own animals to eat. So yeah, no,
we we had what they called a lack of money.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
And it's you know, by the way. That just brings
up a lie that I hear people tell all the time,
which is, man, we were so poor, but we didn't
know it. Let's bullshit. If you're really poor, you really
know it.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You know, if you're slaughtering your own animals, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Well, you know you you got it.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, So I grew up supermarket ham Oh my god,
we can't afford supermarket. Trust nothing that I didn't shoot
in the head myself. So I grew up in that
family and with the older parents, and so it was
like a super southern black accent that I grew up with.
And then when I went to school with white kids,
(08:59):
because it was predominantly white in that in Fatteville at
the time, then it was like it was seriously like
learning a new language, Like what what are you saying?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
So? How old were you when you were put into
that school with all.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Those I never went to kindergarten, so first grade.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay, so like yeah, five or six? Right?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Six years old?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So that is the perfect time to
sort of learn the skill of adapting to where ever
the hell you are exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So then it was like, oh, I'm in white people
land right here, when I go to school, and then
there were words that like my mother would use that
aren't words page page, like which means to die from
hunger okay, but which I later found out for my
brother Jeff, who laughed in my face that it was
(09:47):
basically perish okay, like I'm so home, Agrun'm back to
page okay, but it's perish right, pish page. So I
remember one day in school, like they were like a
word that rhymes with edge, and I said page and
the teacher was like, that's not a word. It's like yeah, patchuck,
you're dying? You so long? Are you going to die?
Like it's not a word, And I go home. And
then my brother Jeff explained, so I had that language already,
(10:11):
that southern black grew up in the Woods language, and
then I met the Southern white folks that I went
to school with then their language, and then then after that,
like trying to not trying to, but being an actor
and a voiceover guy, then I got to get rid
of that Southern white even to be able to speak that.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
All the accents, all the things all I mean, obviously
have a very good ear.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
For some of that stuff. Yeah, but I know, like
when my son was younger and we'd be Atlanta to
drive down to Fattville and he would say, on the
way down to Grandma's house, your voice changes. Yes. Yeah.
So if if my wife hears me on the phone
with my family, it's like a different.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So, so be be in Fatteville talking to you. Yeah, Okay,
what y'all doing down here? Okay? Him right? And then
when you go back up into La, you're talking.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
What are you saying? Right? Why are you saying that?
And I always I tell white people all the time,
this is for you to feel comfortable, right, No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's for you to feel comfortable.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
No, really no, because no I get because I do,
so I will use I will use my native tongue
for work all the time. So it's just like something
I can pull out. Or if I'm around somebody from
the South right now, I'll just.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
When I go to New y I'm from originally from
New York, but I left New York when i was five,
so I'm not a New Yorker. I'm from Encino, right,
I have. But when I go to New York, I'm
feel a bit back in New York and I'm like, hey,
you know, so I have this thing, and it's not
because that's my natural world. It's because I'm hearing other
people talk that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's something about
(12:03):
assimilating to the crowd I'm in makes me feel a
little bit less exposed maybe, or I.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
You know, I guess I could come out here and
I could, I could, I could speak like I did
when I was younger, and I don't know if it
would make me feel weird, like I do have a
pretty good I don't care what you think attitude about.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
At a certain age too, where we're probably pretty comfortable
with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I'm wondering if the same was true when you first
came out into Hollywood. When what age did you come?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Not till later, not till ninety eight, So I was
already thirty two and out heah, why did you come out?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Let's go, let's back up. What makes a person decide,
you know what, I can do.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
This other people. I was in Atlanta and there was
a casting she was casting director and a manager. Her
name is Shay Griffin, and she would get me auditions
for stuff I shouldn't be auditioned for. It would be
like literally, there was an audition for a role that
was a southern white female teenager and she had me
(13:11):
go in on that. And I walked into the room
and these there's these French producers. They were like no
Italian producers. They were like what is this And she goes,
just watch, You'll be fine. And then I got that role.
So she would have me audition for all this crazy stuff.
She really believed in me, and one day she goes,
you've done all you can do here. You need to
really get out of here. Why don't you decide New
(13:33):
York or LA and you need to get out of here.
And that was it her like watching me and believing
in me and thinking, oh, you can do anything.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
How much of your confidence said yeah, great idea, or
how much of you were saying like, I'm worried that
this is not going to work out.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was like, well, I'll try it. And then I
thought I can always go home. That's what I always said, like,
if it doesn't work out, I'll just go back home.
I know I can work. I still can I still can't.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
There's still time.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Maybe right after that, exactly, I find.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Out there's a litmus. There's a bunch of agents and
managers outside the door don't do well. I know you
a ticket I'm ready to fail, not a plane ticket,
a train ticket to fail.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I I'd love to take a train there. That's a
long time I love to take. Maybe I can get
away moll all the way there.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I should just spend a week talking like I grew
up talking.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Just see what happens if you could. If you have
the ear to be able to hear how other people
talking and be able to sort of absorb it and
do it, and then have the ear to do the
stuff you do for movies and voiceovers and everything else,
it's you have a gift in that area. Sure, okay,
so it's it's it's I too, am are like I
(14:51):
hear things better than I read things. Necessarily I can.
I have that thing, but I don't feel comfortable necessarily
code switching to go to the next thing. You know,
I would I would feel like an asshole if I
was in a group of people and just I try
to talk like I was Fayeteville. You know, I think
(15:12):
I would be. Also, it might be considered racist or
something else too, like well that's an extra.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
You could speak your white.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Right, But it's sort of like but but that that
for me would be a really comfortable place. I could
do it. Not as well as you, but I could
do it.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And and uh, but you say you do the same thing,
similar thing in New York when.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
You and and also but not just accents, regional accents,
different groupings of people. So if I'm with super comic
book nerds, I start speaking super comic book and if
I'm with sports guys, I start speaking sports guys. If
with Broadway play people, I'm speaking Broadway plain people. So
the nature of the conversation changes, how people speak changes
(15:58):
in different forms. And I know just enough about all
those subjects that the past.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
That's it, And you're maybe like me. Like in high school,
I was friends with the nerds. I was friends with
the jocks. I was friends with the theater people like
I was friends with all of those, right, you know,
the red necks.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I was friend with the red necks.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Don't be alone with jgic.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So how about growing up in Fayetteville and in the
mostly white school, I'm.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Guessing yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And then from nineteen ye were said you were six
or something, So nineteen seventy time ish nineteen seventies. Yep,
how much racism did you face?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Oh there was, okay, different levels. I will say this
and I tell this all the time to people. I
grew up in Fitville, Jorge, and then to drive up
to Atlanta, You're driving through Riverdale and these other little
small towns, and back then the Klan was trying to
recruit people, and so like I would see the Klan
like in Riverdale hanging out pamphlets, Yeah, trying to get people.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Coupons and Chinese food, Like how do they.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
You know, a little something for the kids to read
on the car? And I remember my sister Mary Wants
snatching a pamphlet out of this clan lady's hand, who
did not realize who's taking act. She turned around to
go thank you, and then looked in the car and like,
if a clan head could have exploded right then, that
would have happened. Sure, So yeah, there was my dad.
(17:41):
My dad had a screwed up eye for most of
his life. They fixed it when he was older because
he had been beaten by the cops down there for
being black. My uncle's like anytime they were visiting us
in the country, and they lived up in Atlanta in
the city fireplace, they would go getting close the dog.
We better get out of here, really get dog. It's
(18:01):
one of those sundown kind of places back then.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So there was real danger.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah. But also you know, I came from a big family,
and if my mother and dad would say, don't start nothing,
but if anybody started, you finish it right, So nobody
was gonna mess with us basically. Also, I came from
a place where, like I grew up in the South,
we had guns, like there weren't gonna be the Klan,
wasn't gonna come knocking on our door, like we're gonna
(18:27):
get shot in the front.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But how often did you get into it or did
you ever? I'm guessing never. I didn't get into a
tussle AT's high school.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I never got into a racist one at high school
because I was also three hundred and sixty pounds or
something back then, and I grew up in a family.
Like you grew up in a big family, you learned
to fight, So nobody was going to mess with the
big guy who would probably fight. And then my brothers
were even bigger than me. But I but so rarely
did people say anything racist to me, as a high
(18:59):
school kid in high schoo that was rare like in others.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Right exactly, they probably would say.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Something that that maybe they didn't know, and I would
straighten somebody out. I heard my best buddy use the
N word one time, and I just punched him right
in the gut. I've never heard him say it again
because I definitely didn't put up with right with that bullshit.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
But I will say, like there were times when we
would like go to a club or something or go
out and like up near Riverdale, Jonesboro, and I would
and somebody might say something and then it's gonna be
like you Yeah. I definitely was not really raised to
turn the other cheek like that.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah. I mean my method of of not fighting with
people was to do kind of what we're talking about,
was like be friendly with a lot of different groups.
And you know, I if somebody said something, I wasn't
anxious to fight anybody. Yeah, and so, but nobody would
generally speak I was. I was a fat kid, uh
(20:02):
and and uh, you know I don't care, you know,
like I would let it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah a lot like stuff Also, like it is hard
to insult you, like I bet you could insult yourself
better than anybody else could insult. Yeah, so and even now,
like it's hard to you got to be somebody who
I really, really really care about that could insult me. Like,
I don't care what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I knew you when you were heavy, and now you're
you've been thin for a long time.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I wouldn't say thin, but yeah, I've been at this way.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'm gonna say that.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The doctors are worried about my bones. All right, I'm
just too thin my bones right, I lost four hundred
pounds of bone weight.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
One of the main questions I have is do you
still feel like a fat guy?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
A lot of times? Yet less less now than I
less now than.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
When you flow you just flew in. Yeah. Right, When
you go sit in the airplane seating, you don't need
the extra seat belt.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Because I always had the In fact, I always wanted
to make okay for those who don't know what Jan
and I are talking about. When you're at a certain weight,
they have these extenders and it's the same thing that
they used to show you how the seat belts work, so, which.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
By the way, is ridiculous. If you're on an airplane,
you don't know how seat belts work. Yeah, it's a
real problem.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
A lot of people use them.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
They've never heard of them. Yeah, that little piece of
it's probably about a foot long or maybe longer. It
extends out. And so if you're so fat that you
can't close a seat belt around you, they give you
this extender. Yeah, now I've lost some weight I don't need.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, you can sit in a regular I remember the time.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I'm sitting in a regular seat and I don't use
an extender.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Go oh wow.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And a lot of times, dude, if if I wasn't
were I not flying for like a TV show or something,
if I was just flying by myself, a lot of
times I would just buy that extra seat next to me,
just so I didn't have to deal with anybody else
who feel like I was in I always felt like
I'm in their space, and so I would a lot
of times just that extrac I was troubling.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Never that generous. You're gonna fly next me.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And I will tell you this now, if I got
on a plane and there's a big person sitting beside me,
I definitely don't have that. Oh there's a big guys
like no, I understand. I was there my entire.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Life exactly exactly. But here's the thing. When I've I've
been heavy and I've been thin, but even when I'm thin,
I still feel heavy.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It took it took me years to not feel that.
It took me years to not test the chair before
I sat down in it, or like if I'm going
between a pole, seriously, like I'll never fit between that,
and then you go, oh, okay, I can't fit between that.
It took years to get over that feeling interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
But growing up heavy is also I think maybe part
of why you're pretty good at sussing out the environment
you're about to walk into. And just like cause you
know you feel different. You do feel different, and so
you want to fit in and your art you're gonna
(22:58):
be different. But how can I be less different?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Right? And I think you're right. The comedy is the
equalizer with like you can really put people at ease
with that. All right?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So I heard you on a podcast I did research.
I do research before guests comes. You should never and
uh and you said to somebody on a podcast recently
that sure you know how to skin a rabbit?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
All right, So here's what we like I said, we
grew up in the woods, right, right, so we built
rabbit boxes. I still know how to build rabbit boxes.
And then you catch those rabbits and then you get
them out of there and you kill them and skin.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Them, right, and you'd eat the rabbit. Yeah, okay, yeah,
yeah I didn't.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I never really liked to taste of a rabbit anything
very greasy. But yeah, I definitely know how to skin her.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Okay, when's the last time that happened?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
When I was very little? Okay, when I was little,
probably in my definitely in my teens before where I
moved out. Because after a while, my dad stopped eating rabbit.
My mother stopped eating rabbit like they squirrel, like they
would eat squirrel, rabbit like they stopped eating that. Like
when she got older, she would go, I can't even
(24:14):
I could never eat a squirrel again, Like she would
say stuff like that, you know, but she grew up
eating it and then like I ate it sometimes when
I was little.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
What's the best squirrel dish?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Oh? This? There were no there was never like, oh, guys,
we're going to make this beautiful squirrel and a possum reduction.
There was never any of that, you know, it would
be like the rabbit too, like fried or stewed or
whatever like that. It was never, but we never like
if you skin a squirrel, like looking at that body,
it looks like a little baby. So it was not
(24:48):
an appetite I'm going to look for in the first one.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And is that any part of why you became a vegetable?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Oh God, yes, that's all about because Yeah, even when
I was a little kid, if I was thinking about
what I was eating, I was done with it. If
I was eating a piece of pork shoulder from the
hog that we had raised, and my brother started doing
his shoulder like raising his shoulders up like I don't
know he knew how much it bothered me, I was done.
(25:14):
I couldn't eat it, I couldn't finish it.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So at what age did you become a vegetarian?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Fisher my latter years of my teens, so around seventeen
or eighteen, I just I couldn't eat any more meat.
I still could do cheese, I could still do dairy,
and I did honey. And one day I was on
tour with my buddies, in a tour in a comedy
(25:41):
group down there, and I was.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Like, what food If the doctor said.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
You couldn't have any more, would you just say screw it,
I'm still gonna eat it. And I was like, mine's cheese.
I'd never give up cheese. And about four months later
I became horribly lactose intolerant. Wow, so I thought, And
then I was talking to my mother about it. She
was like, oh, you know, could come back. You were
allergic to dairy. You almost died as a baby, You
almost died. You were in the hospital because you have
(26:05):
a horrible dairy allergy and so I don't know if
that came back plus lactose intolerance, right, So then after
that that was ninety six, I just gave up all dairy, honey,
anything else.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
All right? So then growing up were you listening to
kiny movies instead of comedians.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
My family is funny. I'm maybe the least funny person
in my family. My brother Jeff, I would just want
I used to deliver furniture with him since I was
like thirteen years old because of them strong legs, and
we would just sit in the back of the furniture company.
And he's just a funny guy. He says funny things
all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Does Jeff do for Lily nothing right now, he.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Can't work anymore. He was Jeff. My family's kind of
like the inventors and tinkerers and stuff like that. But yeah,
he hurt himself, so he can't really worked anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
But what did he do? What was his vocation? Because
the funniest guy I know is a hard surgeon.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
No, no, Jeff was going to be a professional wrestler.
He was an undefeated wrestler in high school, like a
champion football player, all of that kind of stuff. And
then he then he just did regular work after that,
just to because like I said, we came from a
super poor family just to put money back into the
(27:25):
family pot. It was a very communal kind of family
we grew up in.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, my son doesn't do that. My son doesn't put
money back in the family pot. Again, not to be
too hard, but it's not you win. Money is not
coming in two directions.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So yeah, like Jeff's funny, like everybody's funny. My dad
was dry funny. My mother was loud funny. So I
do remember definitely listening to Richard Pryor albums and Red Fox.
I remember listening to those comedy albums, but it was
just growing up in a huge funny family.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Those are dirty albums.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Those were really dirty, really dirty.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So how old were you when you were allowed to
listen to Red five.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
That they were on all the from from my earliest
memories and knowing like, oh man, that's really dirty, you know, all.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Right, But combining that with say, Bugs Bunny.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
All, I was all in still am all cartoons all
the time. I told people Bugs Bunny was my greatest
acting teacher ever, you know. So definitely, like I watched cartoons.
I loved sitcoms on TV, like old stuff like Green
Acres even any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, all
(28:40):
of that stuff. So definitely I never but again I
never watched them with the eye of I want to
do that. Like I would see a great stand up
or a mimic like what was his name back then,
the biggest, biggest voice mimic guy Rich Little. We're still sure,
Like I would see him like but okay, yes, great traveling.
(29:01):
Yeah it's he predated. So I always was a huge
fan of those people, Like I could watch a stand
up or somebody like Rich Little. I could watch them
all day long.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
When did you start doing voices? Because your big voices.
Your voices are incredible.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I was on stage doing improv of that guy Tommy Funch,
and he heard me do an improv rap song. And
he worked at this joint, this big recording studio, and
he was like, you need to do radio commercials. I
was like, I've never done that before. And then he
calls me the next day is like, I wrote this
one for Chicago WG in in Chicago, and I wrote
(29:43):
it for you. You need to come record it. So
I go there and the guy who owned this massive studio,
it was the biggest in Atlanta. It was called Cat's
Part at the time. He heard me and he said, hey,
you need to be doing voiceover. If you will do
some free jobs for me, I will make you the
best voice over demo you will ever have in your life.
(30:04):
And so that's what we did. I would go there
every week some free work and then he would put
he put this dope voice over demo.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
When you had to do it a commercial for Chicago,
did you have to do Chicago accent?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
It was. It was this rap commercial for W A G.
And oh it was just rap commercial. So he wanted
it to be just like real gangster rap, the kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah I to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah you should. I know, you should get it. You
should get all the work. Sure you should be getting
I'm going to get all the whistling work. Sure you
get all the gangster fantastic. Uh So that was it,
Like through that guy and Tommy going no, you should,
you should, this is something you should be doing, and
that was it. Man, all right right there.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, it's one of those things that not everybody can
do it, even though somebody said, hey you should go
do uh boy, you know you really should do it.
Not everybody can do it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
But I also wasn't wasn't smart enough to know that
maybe everybody couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
You know it.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
It was only about eight years ago when I was
standing in a booth and I said, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
My god, I'm a professional.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I'm a professional. I swear to you. That day, I
was like, holy shit, I'm a professional. I make a
living with my throat.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I'm a pro. I had many corn stretchers said the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
By the way, what did you think I was talking about? Okay, yeah,
I was standing in my porn Uh no, it is.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
It is amazing to be able to say that I
am a you know, I make my living doing the
thing that people say you can't make a living at it.
Especially it's your fun, it's your hobby.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
It is absolutely although I've.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Worked it out so that the writing is not so
fun anymore. So I've worked. I worked that part out.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
See writing, that's work. Writing to me is work. I
have a writing partner, We've sold stuff, we've sold a feature,
we've sold kids TV shows. That's work to me. And
also because I have to sit down in one place,
it's better with a writing partner, for sure. But like
if I were doing it on my own, I bore
myself too easily.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's hard, it's boring. You got to refix it, you
got to think about it again and again and again.
It's a lot of puzzle so going into it. But
but then again, it's not work like a million other
people exactly. You get to pick your hours. You could
see Superman in the middle of the day if you
want to.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Don't say anything about it. I haven't. Uh yeah, absolutely,
So that part of that freedom part of it is good.
I am working on some children's books, so that is
totally fun for me. Even when they've said, hey, can
you shrink this down to this mini blah blah, that's
still very fun to me. But scripts and stuff that's
to me, that's a lot of a lot of kids.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Books can be fun, I mean, and and but I
always I always think like there's so many kids books
out there, why why were the again?
Speaker 1 (32:49):
They always need one more because the others are going
to get burned. So once those get burned, and that's it.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, now it's time for listener man.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So this is a question that was sent in by
a listener to me and my guest. It was specifically
for you, but it will not be for you, all right, So,
dear j and guests.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
That must be me, Yeah, dear.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
J and gaw, Gary Anthony, Yeah, yeah, I don't know
what people what's your nickname to people?
Speaker 1 (33:32):
What people at home? My family calls me boomer, Boomer, Okay,
there are people who call me gaw. Most people just
call me by the wrong name, either George or Greg
or Jerry.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
George is a good nickname.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I'll take care.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
George is all right, Well me neither. I don't care
what people call me as long as they call me
all right. So, dear Jay and guests, what's the thing
you miss most about your childhood and what would you
bring back and what's the thing you're most happy to
be rid of?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wow? Oh, this is Jay Angett.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
This is from Ronda jay Oh, and she says, great show.
Thank you Ronda Jay. It is a great show.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And by the way, round to Jay, this show specifically
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It's the best show we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's the best show he's done. I'm gonna let you go.
First of all, I think about it the best thing
about childhood, but the thing I miss.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Most about my childhood. And I would say I liked
on the weekends having friends to just get on our
bikes and go someplace, Like I didn't even know what
we're going to do on the weekend, but I knew
I was going to hang out with a certain group
of friends and we were going to get on our
bikes and we're going to go to play ministry golf.
(34:42):
We're going to go to the mall. We're going to
go like just that instant automatic that's what's going to happen.
I really, I really, I really like that. And as
far as what I would be happy to be rid of,
and I think I've successfully been rid of it, I
was bored a lot. When I was kid, I was
really bored. I one of the reasons I'm in TV
(35:03):
is because I watched all day, nothing but TV. Not
because I loved Green Acres, or because I loved Worst
Petticoat Junction Never Funny, or or you know, Gomer Pile
or Bewitched or or all these things which I just
I'll watch them all. And some of them were fine,
(35:23):
some of them were idiotic. But I watched them all
because I was bored and lonely, and I didn't need that.
I don't need that. I don't have that in my life.
But I'm glad to be rid of that. Now that
I'm an adult, I can plan my time, I can
call people up, I can do things.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Wow wow, Okay, so you you're happy to be done
with the boredom.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
I'm happy to be done with the boredom. But I
liked the automatic socialization that it was expected every weekend.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh Wow, did I What did I?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
What?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Did I? Yeah? What did you like? What do you
miss most? And it could be a food that you
had back home, and it could be an activity you did,
or could be the movie theater doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I have to take it back to something just like
I've lost both my parents and I have to say,
like back in the back in the back, back days,
we would go like fishing, my mom, my dad, all
of us and my grandmother. We would take jointed poles
like ocaine poles and go caine pole fishing and so
(36:29):
like that. Even though you no, it wasn't like, oh,
it's time to go fishing. It was just that whole
family thing.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Everybody, Yeah, where did you fishing? What did you catch?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
There was just these little creeks down down there in Georgia.
There was a lot of stuff down there in the
you know, walleyes, like all kinds of just everything down there,
you know. So that for sure, I definitely kind of
miss that with my mom and dad around and my
grandma around and all of us just playing playing games.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Whi we were out fishing, okay, So that that kind
of family fun.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, exactly, because we didn't go on vacations, Like they
couldn't afford to take us on a vacation. Ever, my
family never went to a restaurant as a whole to
eat like.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
It was there was when's the first time eleven of
us he went to a restaurant that I can remember.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Remember probably high school maybe okay, yeah, probably high school
was the first restaurant I remember going in and sitting
in some place.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
You must be because I came from a privileged family,
like upper middle class, went to restaurants, and my level
of gratitude should be up here, But I'm so fucking
spoiled and used to shit. My level of gratitude is
down here. You must be grateful about stuff all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I'm grateful every and I don't. I do not take
life lightly. Yeah, I really don't. I will in the
middle of anybody having uh conversation about anything, I was like, guys,
we're here, let's do this. Yeah, I take I take
nothing for granted.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Well, I will say that that the moment, the first
moment I met you, you have a a happy spirit,
a happy spirit, and it comes and it comes across. Now,
some people have that happy spirit as a mask to
mask some really unhappy stuff. But I feel like if
(38:21):
I if I drill down, I feel like it's still
find happy.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah. I like I said, I seek joy, So yeah, absolutely,
what do I.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So, what's the thing you're glad to be rid of
from your childhood?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Stupid fish? And chips with What am I glad to
be rid of?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Now? It sounds like you didn't love eating rabbit.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, but I just stopped it. Yeah, well, I I
definitely like the dumber attitudes towards people like I did
a lot of educating people on being poor or being black,
like back then, like that, I think, definitely, I'm glad
I don't have to educate somebody who I thought was
(39:11):
a friend on oh no, here's why you're stupid, and
you might get hit in the face by me in
the next ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
I don't think you hit your friends in the face
that often.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I could. I had a timer sets for every ten minutes,
and sometimes yeah, sometimes I just wouldn't hear it going.
But if I heard it go off, yeah, okay, you'd.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Go, uh.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Maybe that I will come back and think about that
if I need to.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Maybe you can't have loved the deprivation of not of
your family not having enough money. Yeah, but and you said,
really you know you're poor, Like.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
I don't like I didn't like getting bitten by fire ants.
But it's like, oh man, I'm so glad that's over.
I'm sure there's something bigger in my head like you
know there's something bigger in that, Like I guess.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So, But nobody getting bitten by fire ants sucks so
so I mean, it seems.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Like you're.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Part of your way to ease your heart is to
be dismissive of some of those things, because if you
know you and want your kid get bitten by fire ants, right.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
But I will say that things affect me more when
I see them affect other people, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yes, I saw me separately, and I'm saying this doesn't
bother me. That doesn't bother me. But if I were
standing by and I saw something that happened to me,
I would say, hey, that's not right to somebody else,
but not to when it happens to me.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
To me, I just figure like I can handle it,
and it's unfair to me to watch somebody do that
to someone else. Right, I do miss. I do not
miss the like when you were talking about the poorness,
the tension that was in the house on bill paying day,
when I see my mom and dad sitting there counting
(40:55):
out money and deciding what was going to get paid
or what was not going to get paid. So that
but like even that, I have to dig deep the thing.
I okay, yea, so maybe that, but there's nothing that
sticks out in my head.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
But that's all right. That's a good thing to get.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Thank god. That one time, Billy Y Williams, I was
joking with him about the casting couch and I was saying,
oh man, I'm so glad that we don't have to
sleep with people for jobs anymore, and he goes, thank
god that ships over. He was dead serious. I was
like what, and He's like, if you knew how many
women I had to sleep with to get work in
(41:29):
the early days, thank god, that's so yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Wow, what that was an option?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
I guess so I didn't know either.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Maybe it wasn't an option for us.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
It might have been. Maybe we never checked it.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
An option for Billy D.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Maybe we never checked.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Have you ever walked into an audition and said who
do I need to sleep with every time? And I
won't leave until I get this role every time?
Speaker 2 (41:53):
And no hands go up? None, no, no, none none.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
See, I've never tried it.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
So it's like if I said, who do I have
to pay? The handsmarm?
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Okay, who do I have to pay to sleep with
pay to meet to maybe sleep, meet me maybe. Uh.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
So now it's time for the moment of joy.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yes, a moment of joy.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Uh And this is where you my guess. Yeah, it
tells me something that gives you joy, maybe even something
that we could all take from to give joy from.
But it can't be your family, and it can't be work.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Okay, if it can't be family and it can't be work, Like,
simple things bring me joy, Like we talked about people.
I love. I love children. I literally love watching children
light up when they're playing. I like that. I like
that whole freedom thing of there are no boundaries. Yesterday
(42:55):
I was walking through the airport and I had my
luggage in as a newer bag, and it's got great
fucking wheels. It's got great wheels. I was throwing it in,
I was pushing it in front of me and making
it twisting circles and then catching up to it. And
then I went, oh shit, I'm fifty nine. Maybe somebody
thinks I shouldn't be doing yes, but I'm not going
(43:16):
to stop twisting this bag around. And then I thought,
this is exactly what an eight year old boy would
be doing right now. And then I did not stop,
and then I started using it like it was a
race car, because they have these weird lines now through
some of the airport, like showing you where you're going.
So I think it is just that unabandoned, non judgmental
(43:38):
thing that I see children doing.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
All right, But the career choice that you've made is
to be playing yes. So that's what you do for
a living. That is the thing literally that you get
to do every day when you're in the improv group,
when you're doing acting your voice, you're playing yes.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
That's fantastic, And I did, Like I caught myself playing
yesterday in the airport. I was already playing the game,
throwing my luggage and twisting it before I realized.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I do it all the time I play. I make
funny voices, I make jokes to myself in the car
if there's a if there's a rock in my path
and I'm gonna try and kick the rock down there,
keep it in play until it falls off the car, exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
I kind of let that rock go exactly Yeah, because
we're playful. I hope that that's true of everybody, but
I just don't know it.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I will tell you that my son, uh, and I
know you have one.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I remember telling my son, like we were driving home,
we were driving away from our house and people were
coming home from work and they had the glazed look
on their faces, and I remember saying to him, son,
never be that guy, Never be that guy in that
car coming home with that look in your on your face.
Find something that brings you joy. Seek joy. And he goes,
(44:54):
I don't. I don't seek joy. That's not what I do.
And I was like, what do you seek any He said,
I seek truth, like I just want the truth. And
then I said to him, well that's your joy. Finding
truth is your joy, and he goes, no, you just
want that to be my joy. I just seek the truth, right.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah, So I don't think everybody.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Does seek joy like people like. I don't know. Now
I should ask him, now, I should ask him again.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Does he find the truth. I'm very interested in this.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
He is definitely. He does not like any bullshit from anything.
He would rather you just tell him flat out what
the deal is. He told me when he was three
that there was no Santa Claus like he told me,
so he would just rather tell you flat out what
the deal is. And he will deal with the repercussions.
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
That's a very interesting person. I was a flosphy major,
and I in college discovered that as much as you
try to seek the truth, there's no one answer. It's tough.
It's tough. But maybe your son knows, maybe he has
the truth.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
You might Yeah, you may need to go back to college.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
I may. All right, Well, garyfy Williams. Thank you for
being this or am I joke?
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Heret We're so done? Did it?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
It was? It was great hanging with you, great getting
to know you a little bit better, and great being
able to tell you I like your who you are.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I can't believe we literally shook hands on friendship.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yes, we literally no friends. We're no longer acquaintances. We're
not friends.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I wish it were. I wish I wasn't an antisematic.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
We can work on that. We can work. I'm happy.
Well you could pull me into your point of view,
May I should be?
Speaker 1 (46:33):
I understand.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
I understand, and so thank you for being here. Thank you,
thank you for being here. Please write to me at
dB A w JK at gmail dot com with all
your common suggestions, like the show, share the show, go
to the substack, all the things you're supposed to do,
but mainly figure out a time this week to have
a conversation with somebody. Right, how could they not like
this show?
Speaker 1 (46:54):
No?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
No, there's like a button you have to press a lot.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
But how could they not? Though?
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Oh I don't know. But even worse, how do they
not subscribe? Tuning in and not subscribe?
Speaker 1 (47:02):
What's wrong?
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's right, it's evil. You gotta subscribe.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
I swear to you if they leave their address, if
they leave their home address up there and they don't subscribe,
I will go. I'll go to their home.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Oh is there anything that you want to promote before
we get Oh?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah sure sure. Look for Who's Live
Is It Anyway? Coming to a town near you? The
live Whose line is It Anyway? And I have several
new cartoons coming up, but one that's very exciting is
called iy of Wakanda, which is the new Black Panther
cartoon that Todd Harris created. Fantastic that will be on soon.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Okay, fantastic, So look for Gary Anthony Williams and that. Yeah,
and I look for you guys next time.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Hey, can't say one last thing? Sure, Malcolm in the Middle.
We just did a four episode right boot of Malcolm
in Them.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
It's coming out on Disney Plus very soon. It's going
to be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I'm done talking, Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
In the Middle. It's it's really that four episode thing is.
It's you know how they reboot stuff and it sucks.
This is actually good.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
This is the opposite of I Swear to you, I
swear to you. This is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, it's pretty good. Anyway, see you next time. Don't
be alone with J. J.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Cogain.
Strawut Media. Hi. Gary Anthony Williams, also the voice of
Anka Rock I sound abone doc No. I love All
White Man, especially that damn Jay Cogan. Yes, too bad,
he wish don't be alone with JJ Cogan.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey, don't be a owners. It's I know you don't
call yourself that. I am a fully aware no one
calls himself a don't be a loner, but I'm saying
it anyway. Just live with it, Live with it.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
This is Jay Cogan and you're listening to or watching
Don't be Alone with Ja Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I'm really pleased to have you here. We have
a really great show. I get to spend time with
somebody today who I don't spend a lot of time with.
This guy, Gary Anthony Williams. He is an actor, he's
a writer, he's a very famous voiceover guy. Uh and uh.
He's been a very important person than the improv community
(01:01):
for many many years. And Gary and I come from
two completely different places, in two completely different worlds. But
we see i'd I take it back. They don't see
eye to eye.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
We vibe.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Does that make sense? It's different than seeing eydeye? We
vibe together? What is it about us that vibes? And
I had an idea about what it is, which is
Gary has the ability to fit in everywhere he goes.
First of all, he's really nice, really smart, But second
of all, he's very attentive to how who people are,
how they sound, the world he's looking at, and I
(01:37):
respect that about him. That's something that I try to
do out of my own insecurity, Like I would like
to when I enter a room, I'd like to fit
into the people in the room, because all my life
I've always felt like I don't fit in. So I
try to find out what the room's about and be
part of that room. And it's a survival technique, I think.
(01:58):
So I'm going to ask Gary about his technique about
fitting in because he's really good at it and I'd
like to be better at it. But before we get
to that, I want to encourage you to like the show,
subscribe to the show, share this show, go to the
substack that we're creating that has bonus material for Don't
Be Alone with Ja Cogan. I think it's under j Cogan,
(02:20):
Jyko g En and write me at dbajk at gmail
dot com with all your suggestions your criticisms, your comments,
and most importantly, your listener mail. I got to have
the listener mail otherwise I can't do the listener mail segment.
What am I going to do? Just sit there and
have silence for five minutes? No, I need your listener questions.
(02:41):
But if you like the show and a lot of
people are liking the show, I really appreciate it. I
know Ryan, producer, Ryan would appreciate it. I mean that's
all he does is he sits and paces back and
forth worrying about who's liking the show. So like the show,
subscribe to the show, share the show, and we'll be
right back with a really good one with Gary Anthony Williams.
(03:02):
Don't be alone with Gary Anthony Williams. Thank you for
being here.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
This is I'm gonna be honest. This is maybe the
third best day of my life.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Wow, Yeah, what is what's one and two?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I don't know. I'm just saying maybe my child being
born was a great day, right, I don't know what
the others are? Your son, Okay, yeah, I don't know
what the others are, So this might be the third day.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, I'm I'm I'm thriller here, I I wanted you
here for a couple of reasons. One is, I'm a
fan of your work and I'm a fan of yours.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Let's just be honest. I've done so much that you've enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Like all the in his everything I have, I've never
had a miss.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It's not I didn't ever say that it's not everything,
but I did. I said it's fine, and you can
think that.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Please allow me to speak to you on this one.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But here's the thing. You're very, very funny. You're funny
in a in a way that our group of friends
speak like you speak. You speak a language that improvisers speak,
that comedians speak, that actors speak. You speak this language
that not everybody speaks. Like what you just did when
(04:19):
you made fun of you of the very premise of
the thing. I said, immediately made fun of it.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I was agreeing with you. I'm sorry if it sounded
like I was making sense.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That's an agree agreeing, but adding humor to it is
part of the language.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Let us agree to disagree that we're.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
If we sat in a different environment and somebody said something,
we'd have to go Yes, you're right, of course, and
but but we're not in that environment. And the reason
I'm grateful for that is I like the environment we
live in. I liked the jokey environment. I like people
enjoying themselves. I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I I do think that most I like super smart people,
and I like super funny people, and I do think
that a lot of people live in that environment. A
buddy of mine just came to town for like some
not good reasons, and that was the first time we've
ever just spoken to each other about something serious. And
he said himself, I just realized we've literally never had
(05:19):
a serious conversation. The two of us were newer friends.
He's just this this dude who's just ridiculously funny and
has never done anything with that.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, but you and I are not friends.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
In fact, we're very close to enemies.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
No, no, no, we are acquaintances. You and I are friends.
Is However, every time I've come across you, I felt
a kinship. So this is this is what I'm saying
when when one of the reasons I've sought you out
and said, hey, how can I get you on the podcast?
Is because when when we sat with the I Guess
(05:55):
with Steve Rudnick and talking about comedy. He was filming
a movie about, oh, heavy people or something like that.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what was I can't remember the name
of it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I don't either, and then or outside of the black
version or I'm talking to you like it's there's a
simpatico there that makes me think, oh, you're a very
close friend of mine.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I mean, what's stopping us from right now just shaking
hands and just admitting friendship?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
What stopped to hear this?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Hey, hey, friend, look at that?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And then we're gonna go up for chili dogs right after.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh, I can't wait for a nice vegan chili dog
vegan low car. See there's the friendship walk just over
you know, right, Jacogan?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Exactly right, exactly. Part of Don't Be Alone with Jake
Cogan My Lovely podcast is I have people on here
who I want to talk to and get to know better,
nice and or people I know really well. I don't
want to talk again. But I also have a problem
that needs to be solved.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Oh, I hope it's got something to do with gardening.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's not gardening. It's not gardening. It's something called code switching. Yeah,
all right, So you speak many different languages. I do
and you speak I mean, and I'm not saying French
and Russian, but I'm saying that you can be integrated
into any kind of group. Yeah, and you can find
(07:16):
your way to be amongst any group of people and
make yourself feel at home. Yes, all right, that's that's
a great I gift.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I think I come by it honestly.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I grew up in the deep, deep, deep deep South,
and it was the deep, deep, deep deep deep South.
Then it's less now. And my parents Georgia in Georgia, Intville,
Georgia and Georgia. And my parents were both older, so
there my dad was born in twenty three and my
mother was born in thirty two.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So when you were born, your dad was already forty.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Maybe three six. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, he was in his forties.
And then I have a sister eight years younger, Okay,
then me. Uh, there's there were six girls, three boys
in the house.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
With all those children, you must have parents were to
be very rich.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The extremely rich, to the point of we grew our
own food and slaughtered our own animals to eat. So yeah, no,
we we had what they called a lack of money.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
And it's you know, by the way. That just brings
up a lie that I hear people tell all the time,
which is, man, we were so poor, but we didn't
know it. Let's bullshit. If you're really poor, you really
know it.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You know, if you're slaughtering your own animals, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Well, you know you you got it.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, So I grew up supermarket ham Oh my god,
we can't afford supermarket. Trust nothing that I didn't shoot
in the head myself. So I grew up in that
family and with the older parents, and so it was
like a super southern black accent that I grew up with.
And then when I went to school with white kids,
(08:59):
because it was predominantly white in that in Fatteville at
the time, then it was like it was seriously like
learning a new language, Like what what are you saying?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
So? How old were you when you were put into
that school with all.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Those I never went to kindergarten, so first grade.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay, so like yeah, five or six? Right?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Six years old?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So that is the perfect time to
sort of learn the skill of adapting to where ever
the hell you are exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So then it was like, oh, I'm in white people
land right here, when I go to school, and then
there were words that like my mother would use that
aren't words page page, like which means to die from
hunger okay, but which I later found out for my
brother Jeff, who laughed in my face that it was
(09:47):
basically perish okay, like I'm so home, Agrun'm back to
page okay, but it's perish right, pish page. So I
remember one day in school, like they were like a
word that rhymes with edge, and I said page and
the teacher was like, that's not a word. It's like yeah, patchuck,
you're dying? You so long? Are you going to die?
Like it's not a word, And I go home. And
then my brother Jeff explained, so I had that language already,
(10:11):
that southern black grew up in the Woods language, and
then I met the Southern white folks that I went
to school with then their language, and then then after that,
like trying to not trying to, but being an actor
and a voiceover guy, then I got to get rid
of that Southern white even to be able to speak that.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
All the accents, all the things all I mean, obviously
have a very good ear.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
For some of that stuff. Yeah, but I know, like
when my son was younger and we'd be Atlanta to
drive down to Fattville and he would say, on the
way down to Grandma's house, your voice changes. Yes. Yeah.
So if if my wife hears me on the phone
with my family, it's like a different.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So, so be be in Fatteville talking to you. Yeah, Okay,
what y'all doing down here? Okay? Him right? And then
when you go back up into La, you're talking.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
What are you saying? Right? Why are you saying that?
And I always I tell white people all the time,
this is for you to feel comfortable, right, No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's for you to feel comfortable.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
No, really no, because no I get because I do,
so I will use I will use my native tongue
for work all the time. So it's just like something
I can pull out. Or if I'm around somebody from
the South right now, I'll just.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
When I go to New y I'm from originally from
New York, but I left New York when i was five,
so I'm not a New Yorker. I'm from Encino, right,
I have. But when I go to New York, I'm
feel a bit back in New York and I'm like, hey,
you know, so I have this thing, and it's not
because that's my natural world. It's because I'm hearing other
people talk that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's something about
(12:03):
assimilating to the crowd I'm in makes me feel a
little bit less exposed maybe, or I.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
You know, I guess I could come out here and
I could, I could, I could speak like I did
when I was younger, and I don't know if it
would make me feel weird, like I do have a
pretty good I don't care what you think attitude about.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
At a certain age too, where we're probably pretty comfortable
with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I'm wondering if the same was true when you first
came out into Hollywood. When what age did you come?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Not till later, not till ninety eight, So I was
already thirty two and out heah, why did you come out?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Let's go, let's back up. What makes a person decide,
you know what, I can do.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
This other people. I was in Atlanta and there was
a casting she was casting director and a manager. Her
name is Shay Griffin, and she would get me auditions
for stuff I shouldn't be auditioned for. It would be
like literally, there was an audition for a role that
was a southern white female teenager and she had me
(13:11):
go in on that. And I walked into the room
and these there's these French producers. They were like no
Italian producers. They were like what is this And she goes,
just watch, You'll be fine. And then I got that role.
So she would have me audition for all this crazy stuff.
She really believed in me, and one day she goes,
you've done all you can do here. You need to
really get out of here. Why don't you decide New
(13:33):
York or LA and you need to get out of here.
And that was it her like watching me and believing
in me and thinking, oh, you can do anything.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
How much of your confidence said yeah, great idea, or
how much of you were saying like, I'm worried that
this is not going to work out.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was like, well, I'll try it. And then I
thought I can always go home. That's what I always said, like,
if it doesn't work out, I'll just go back home.
I know I can work. I still can I still can't.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
There's still time.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Maybe right after that, exactly, I find.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Out there's a litmus. There's a bunch of agents and
managers outside the door don't do well. I know you
a ticket I'm ready to fail, not a plane ticket,
a train ticket to fail.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I I'd love to take a train there. That's a
long time I love to take. Maybe I can get
away moll all the way there.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I should just spend a week talking like I grew
up talking.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Just see what happens if you could. If you have
the ear to be able to hear how other people
talking and be able to sort of absorb it and
do it, and then have the ear to do the
stuff you do for movies and voiceovers and everything else,
it's you have a gift in that area. Sure, okay,
so it's it's it's I too, am are like I
(14:51):
hear things better than I read things. Necessarily I can.
I have that thing, but I don't feel comfortable necessarily
code switching to go to the next thing. You know,
I would I would feel like an asshole if I
was in a group of people and just I try
to talk like I was Fayeteville. You know, I think
(15:12):
I would be. Also, it might be considered racist or
something else too, like well that's an extra.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
You could speak your white.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Right, But it's sort of like but but that that
for me would be a really comfortable place. I could
do it. Not as well as you, but I could
do it.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And and uh, but you say you do the same thing,
similar thing in New York when.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
You and and also but not just accents, regional accents,
different groupings of people. So if I'm with super comic
book nerds, I start speaking super comic book and if
I'm with sports guys, I start speaking sports guys. If
with Broadway play people, I'm speaking Broadway plain people. So
the nature of the conversation changes, how people speak changes
(15:58):
in different forms. And I know just enough about all
those subjects that the past.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
That's it, And you're maybe like me. Like in high school,
I was friends with the nerds. I was friends with
the jocks. I was friends with the theater people like
I was friends with all of those, right, you know,
the red necks.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I was friend with the red necks.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Don't be alone with jgic.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So how about growing up in Fayetteville and in the
mostly white school, I'm.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Guessing yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And then from nineteen ye were said you were six
or something, So nineteen seventy time ish nineteen seventies. Yep,
how much racism did you face?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Oh there was, okay, different levels. I will say this
and I tell this all the time to people. I
grew up in Fitville, Jorge, and then to drive up
to Atlanta, You're driving through Riverdale and these other little
small towns, and back then the Klan was trying to
recruit people, and so like I would see the Klan
like in Riverdale hanging out pamphlets, Yeah, trying to get people.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Coupons and Chinese food, Like how do they.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
You know, a little something for the kids to read
on the car? And I remember my sister Mary Wants
snatching a pamphlet out of this clan lady's hand, who
did not realize who's taking act. She turned around to
go thank you, and then looked in the car and like,
if a clan head could have exploded right then, that
would have happened. Sure, So yeah, there was my dad.
(17:41):
My dad had a screwed up eye for most of
his life. They fixed it when he was older because
he had been beaten by the cops down there for
being black. My uncle's like anytime they were visiting us
in the country, and they lived up in Atlanta in
the city fireplace, they would go getting close the dog.
We better get out of here, really get dog. It's
(18:01):
one of those sundown kind of places back then.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So there was real danger.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah. But also you know, I came from a big family,
and if my mother and dad would say, don't start nothing,
but if anybody started, you finish it right, So nobody
was gonna mess with us basically. Also, I came from
a place where, like I grew up in the South,
we had guns, like there weren't gonna be the Klan,
wasn't gonna come knocking on our door, like we're gonna
(18:27):
get shot in the front.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But how often did you get into it or did
you ever? I'm guessing never. I didn't get into a
tussle AT's high school.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I never got into a racist one at high school
because I was also three hundred and sixty pounds or
something back then, and I grew up in a family.
Like you grew up in a big family, you learned
to fight, So nobody was going to mess with the
big guy who would probably fight. And then my brothers
were even bigger than me. But I but so rarely
did people say anything racist to me, as a high
(18:59):
school kid in high schoo that was rare like in others.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Right exactly, they probably would say.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Something that that maybe they didn't know, and I would
straighten somebody out. I heard my best buddy use the
N word one time, and I just punched him right
in the gut. I've never heard him say it again
because I definitely didn't put up with right with that bullshit.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
But I will say, like there were times when we
would like go to a club or something or go
out and like up near Riverdale, Jonesboro, and I would
and somebody might say something and then it's gonna be
like you Yeah. I definitely was not really raised to
turn the other cheek like that.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah. I mean my method of of not fighting with
people was to do kind of what we're talking about,
was like be friendly with a lot of different groups.
And you know, I if somebody said something, I wasn't
anxious to fight anybody. Yeah, and so, but nobody would
generally speak I was. I was a fat kid, uh
(20:02):
and and uh, you know I don't care, you know,
like I would let it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah a lot like stuff Also, like it is hard
to insult you, like I bet you could insult yourself
better than anybody else could insult. Yeah, so and even now,
like it's hard to you got to be somebody who
I really, really really care about that could insult me. Like,
I don't care what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I knew you when you were heavy, and now you're
you've been thin for a long time.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I wouldn't say thin, but yeah, I've been at this way.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'm gonna say that.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The doctors are worried about my bones. All right, I'm
just too thin my bones right, I lost four hundred
pounds of bone weight.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
One of the main questions I have is do you
still feel like a fat guy?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
A lot of times? Yet less less now than I
less now than.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
When you flow you just flew in. Yeah. Right, When
you go sit in the airplane seating, you don't need
the extra seat belt.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Because I always had the In fact, I always wanted
to make okay for those who don't know what Jan
and I are talking about. When you're at a certain weight,
they have these extenders and it's the same thing that
they used to show you how the seat belts work, so, which.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
By the way, is ridiculous. If you're on an airplane,
you don't know how seat belts work. Yeah, it's a
real problem.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
A lot of people use them.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
They've never heard of them. Yeah, that little piece of
it's probably about a foot long or maybe longer. It
extends out. And so if you're so fat that you
can't close a seat belt around you, they give you
this extender. Yeah, now I've lost some weight I don't need.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, you can sit in a regular I remember the time.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I'm sitting in a regular seat and I don't use
an extender.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Go oh wow.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And a lot of times, dude, if if I wasn't
were I not flying for like a TV show or something,
if I was just flying by myself, a lot of
times I would just buy that extra seat next to me,
just so I didn't have to deal with anybody else
who feel like I was in I always felt like
I'm in their space, and so I would a lot
of times just that extrac I was troubling.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Never that generous. You're gonna fly next me.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And I will tell you this now, if I got
on a plane and there's a big person sitting beside me,
I definitely don't have that. Oh there's a big guys
like no, I understand. I was there my entire.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Life exactly exactly. But here's the thing. When I've I've
been heavy and I've been thin, but even when I'm thin,
I still feel heavy.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It took it took me years to not feel that.
It took me years to not test the chair before
I sat down in it, or like if I'm going
between a pole, seriously, like I'll never fit between that,
and then you go, oh, okay, I can't fit between that.
It took years to get over that feeling interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
But growing up heavy is also I think maybe part
of why you're pretty good at sussing out the environment
you're about to walk into. And just like cause you
know you feel different. You do feel different, and so
you want to fit in and your art you're gonna
(22:58):
be different. But how can I be less different?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Right? And I think you're right. The comedy is the
equalizer with like you can really put people at ease
with that. All right?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So I heard you on a podcast I did research.
I do research before guests comes. You should never and
uh and you said to somebody on a podcast recently
that sure you know how to skin a rabbit?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
All right, So here's what we like I said, we
grew up in the woods, right, right, so we built
rabbit boxes. I still know how to build rabbit boxes.
And then you catch those rabbits and then you get
them out of there and you kill them and skin.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Them, right, and you'd eat the rabbit. Yeah, okay, yeah,
yeah I didn't.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I never really liked to taste of a rabbit anything
very greasy. But yeah, I definitely know how to skin her.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Okay, when's the last time that happened?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
When I was very little? Okay, when I was little,
probably in my definitely in my teens before where I
moved out. Because after a while, my dad stopped eating rabbit.
My mother stopped eating rabbit like they squirrel, like they
would eat squirrel, rabbit like they stopped eating that. Like
when she got older, she would go, I can't even
(24:14):
I could never eat a squirrel again, Like she would
say stuff like that, you know, but she grew up
eating it and then like I ate it sometimes when
I was little.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
What's the best squirrel dish?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Oh? This? There were no there was never like, oh, guys,
we're going to make this beautiful squirrel and a possum reduction.
There was never any of that, you know, it would
be like the rabbit too, like fried or stewed or
whatever like that. It was never, but we never like
if you skin a squirrel, like looking at that body,
it looks like a little baby. So it was not
(24:48):
an appetite I'm going to look for in the first one.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And is that any part of why you became a vegetable?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Oh God, yes, that's all about because Yeah, even when
I was a little kid, if I was thinking about
what I was eating, I was done with it. If
I was eating a piece of pork shoulder from the
hog that we had raised, and my brother started doing
his shoulder like raising his shoulders up like I don't
know he knew how much it bothered me, I was done.
(25:14):
I couldn't eat it, I couldn't finish it.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So at what age did you become a vegetarian?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Fisher my latter years of my teens, so around seventeen
or eighteen, I just I couldn't eat any more meat.
I still could do cheese, I could still do dairy,
and I did honey. And one day I was on
tour with my buddies, in a tour in a comedy
(25:41):
group down there, and I was.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Like, what food If the doctor said.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
You couldn't have any more, would you just say screw it,
I'm still gonna eat it. And I was like, mine's cheese.
I'd never give up cheese. And about four months later
I became horribly lactose intolerant. Wow, so I thought, And
then I was talking to my mother about it. She
was like, oh, you know, could come back. You were
allergic to dairy. You almost died as a baby, You
almost died. You were in the hospital because you have
(26:05):
a horrible dairy allergy and so I don't know if
that came back plus lactose intolerance, right, So then after
that that was ninety six, I just gave up all dairy, honey,
anything else.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
All right? So then growing up were you listening to
kiny movies instead of comedians.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
My family is funny. I'm maybe the least funny person
in my family. My brother Jeff, I would just want
I used to deliver furniture with him since I was
like thirteen years old because of them strong legs, and
we would just sit in the back of the furniture company.
And he's just a funny guy. He says funny things
all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Does Jeff do for Lily nothing right now, he.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Can't work anymore. He was Jeff. My family's kind of
like the inventors and tinkerers and stuff like that. But yeah,
he hurt himself, so he can't really worked anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
But what did he do? What was his vocation? Because
the funniest guy I know is a hard surgeon.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
No, no, Jeff was going to be a professional wrestler.
He was an undefeated wrestler in high school, like a
champion football player, all of that kind of stuff. And
then he then he just did regular work after that,
just to because like I said, we came from a
super poor family just to put money back into the
(27:25):
family pot. It was a very communal kind of family
we grew up in.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, my son doesn't do that. My son doesn't put
money back in the family pot. Again, not to be
too hard, but it's not you win. Money is not
coming in two directions.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So yeah, like Jeff's funny, like everybody's funny. My dad
was dry funny. My mother was loud funny. So I
do remember definitely listening to Richard Pryor albums and Red Fox.
I remember listening to those comedy albums, but it was
just growing up in a huge funny family.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Those are dirty albums.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Those were really dirty, really dirty.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So how old were you when you were allowed to
listen to Red five.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
That they were on all the from from my earliest
memories and knowing like, oh man, that's really dirty, you know, all.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Right, But combining that with say, Bugs Bunny.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
All, I was all in still am all cartoons all
the time. I told people Bugs Bunny was my greatest
acting teacher ever, you know. So definitely, like I watched cartoons.
I loved sitcoms on TV, like old stuff like Green
Acres even any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, all
(28:40):
of that stuff. So definitely I never but again I
never watched them with the eye of I want to
do that. Like I would see a great stand up
or a mimic like what was his name back then,
the biggest, biggest voice mimic guy Rich Little. We're still sure,
Like I would see him like but okay, yes, great traveling.
(29:01):
Yeah it's he predated. So I always was a huge
fan of those people, Like I could watch a stand
up or somebody like Rich Little. I could watch them
all day long.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
When did you start doing voices? Because your big voices.
Your voices are incredible.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I was on stage doing improv of that guy Tommy Funch,
and he heard me do an improv rap song. And
he worked at this joint, this big recording studio, and
he was like, you need to do radio commercials. I
was like, I've never done that before. And then he
calls me the next day is like, I wrote this
one for Chicago WG in in Chicago, and I wrote
(29:43):
it for you. You need to come record it. So
I go there and the guy who owned this massive studio,
it was the biggest in Atlanta. It was called Cat's
Part at the time. He heard me and he said, hey,
you need to be doing voiceover. If you will do
some free jobs for me, I will make you the
best voice over demo you will ever have in your life.
(30:04):
And so that's what we did. I would go there
every week some free work and then he would put
he put this dope voice over demo.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
When you had to do it a commercial for Chicago,
did you have to do Chicago accent?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
It was. It was this rap commercial for W A G.
And oh it was just rap commercial. So he wanted
it to be just like real gangster rap, the kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah I to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah you should. I know, you should get it. You
should get all the work. Sure you should be getting
I'm going to get all the whistling work. Sure you
get all the gangster fantastic. Uh So that was it,
Like through that guy and Tommy going no, you should,
you should, this is something you should be doing, and
that was it. Man, all right right there.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, it's one of those things that not everybody can
do it, even though somebody said, hey you should go
do uh boy, you know you really should do it.
Not everybody can do it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
But I also wasn't wasn't smart enough to know that
maybe everybody couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
You know it.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
It was only about eight years ago when I was
standing in a booth and I said, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
My god, I'm a professional.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I'm a professional. I swear to you. That day, I
was like, holy shit, I'm a professional. I make a
living with my throat.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I'm a pro. I had many corn stretchers said the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
By the way, what did you think I was talking about? Okay, yeah,
I was standing in my porn Uh no, it is.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
It is amazing to be able to say that I
am a you know, I make my living doing the
thing that people say you can't make a living at it.
Especially it's your fun, it's your hobby.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
It is absolutely although I've.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Worked it out so that the writing is not so
fun anymore. So I've worked. I worked that part out.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
See writing, that's work. Writing to me is work. I
have a writing partner, We've sold stuff, we've sold a feature,
we've sold kids TV shows. That's work to me. And
also because I have to sit down in one place,
it's better with a writing partner, for sure. But like
if I were doing it on my own, I bore
myself too easily.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's hard, it's boring. You got to refix it, you
got to think about it again and again and again.
It's a lot of puzzle so going into it. But
but then again, it's not work like a million other
people exactly. You get to pick your hours. You could
see Superman in the middle of the day if you
want to.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Don't say anything about it. I haven't. Uh yeah, absolutely,
So that part of that freedom part of it is good.
I am working on some children's books, so that is
totally fun for me. Even when they've said, hey, can
you shrink this down to this mini blah blah, that's
still very fun to me. But scripts and stuff that's
to me, that's a lot of a lot of kids.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Books can be fun, I mean, and and but I
always I always think like there's so many kids books
out there, why why were the again?
Speaker 1 (32:49):
They always need one more because the others are going
to get burned. So once those get burned, and that's it.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, now it's time for listener man.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So this is a question that was sent in by
a listener to me and my guest. It was specifically
for you, but it will not be for you, all right, So,
dear j and guests.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
That must be me, Yeah, dear.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
J and gaw, Gary Anthony, Yeah, yeah, I don't know
what people what's your nickname to people?
Speaker 1 (33:32):
What people at home? My family calls me boomer, Boomer, Okay,
there are people who call me gaw. Most people just
call me by the wrong name, either George or Greg
or Jerry.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
George is a good nickname.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I'll take care.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
George is all right, Well me neither. I don't care
what people call me as long as they call me
all right. So, dear Jay and guests, what's the thing
you miss most about your childhood and what would you
bring back and what's the thing you're most happy to
be rid of?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wow? Oh, this is Jay Angett.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
This is from Ronda jay Oh, and she says, great show.
Thank you Ronda Jay. It is a great show.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And by the way, round to Jay, this show specifically
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It's the best show we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's the best show he's done. I'm gonna let you go.
First of all, I think about it the best thing
about childhood, but the thing I miss.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Most about my childhood. And I would say I liked
on the weekends having friends to just get on our
bikes and go someplace, Like I didn't even know what
we're going to do on the weekend, but I knew
I was going to hang out with a certain group
of friends and we were going to get on our
bikes and we're going to go to play ministry golf.
(34:42):
We're going to go to the mall. We're going to
go like just that instant automatic that's what's going to happen.
I really, I really, I really like that. And as
far as what I would be happy to be rid of,
and I think I've successfully been rid of it, I
was bored a lot. When I was kid, I was
really bored. I one of the reasons I'm in TV
(35:03):
is because I watched all day, nothing but TV. Not
because I loved Green Acres, or because I loved Worst
Petticoat Junction Never Funny, or or you know, Gomer Pile
or Bewitched or or all these things which I just
I'll watch them all. And some of them were fine,
(35:23):
some of them were idiotic. But I watched them all
because I was bored and lonely, and I didn't need that.
I don't need that. I don't have that in my life.
But I'm glad to be rid of that. Now that
I'm an adult, I can plan my time, I can
call people up, I can do things.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Wow wow, Okay, so you you're happy to be done
with the boredom.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
I'm happy to be done with the boredom. But I
liked the automatic socialization that it was expected every weekend.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh Wow, did I What did I?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
What?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Did I? Yeah? What did you like? What do you
miss most? And it could be a food that you
had back home, and it could be an activity you did,
or could be the movie theater doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I have to take it back to something just like
I've lost both my parents and I have to say,
like back in the back in the back, back days,
we would go like fishing, my mom, my dad, all
of us and my grandmother. We would take jointed poles
like ocaine poles and go caine pole fishing and so
(36:29):
like that. Even though you no, it wasn't like, oh,
it's time to go fishing. It was just that whole
family thing.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Everybody, Yeah, where did you fishing? What did you catch?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
There was just these little creeks down down there in Georgia.
There was a lot of stuff down there in the
you know, walleyes, like all kinds of just everything down there,
you know. So that for sure, I definitely kind of
miss that with my mom and dad around and my
grandma around and all of us just playing playing games.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Whi we were out fishing, okay, So that that kind
of family fun.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, exactly, because we didn't go on vacations, Like they
couldn't afford to take us on a vacation. Ever, my
family never went to a restaurant as a whole to
eat like.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
It was there was when's the first time eleven of
us he went to a restaurant that I can remember.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Remember probably high school maybe okay, yeah, probably high school
was the first restaurant I remember going in and sitting
in some place.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
You must be because I came from a privileged family,
like upper middle class, went to restaurants, and my level
of gratitude should be up here, But I'm so fucking
spoiled and used to shit. My level of gratitude is
down here. You must be grateful about stuff all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I'm grateful every and I don't. I do not take
life lightly. Yeah, I really don't. I will in the
middle of anybody having uh conversation about anything, I was like, guys,
we're here, let's do this. Yeah, I take I take
nothing for granted.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Well, I will say that that the moment, the first
moment I met you, you have a a happy spirit,
a happy spirit, and it comes and it comes across. Now,
some people have that happy spirit as a mask to
mask some really unhappy stuff. But I feel like if
(38:21):
I if I drill down, I feel like it's still
find happy.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah. I like I said, I seek joy, So yeah, absolutely,
what do I.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So, what's the thing you're glad to be rid of
from your childhood?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Stupid fish? And chips with What am I glad to
be rid of?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Now? It sounds like you didn't love eating rabbit.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, but I just stopped it. Yeah, well, I I
definitely like the dumber attitudes towards people like I did
a lot of educating people on being poor or being black,
like back then, like that, I think, definitely, I'm glad
I don't have to educate somebody who I thought was
(39:11):
a friend on oh no, here's why you're stupid, and
you might get hit in the face by me in
the next ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
I don't think you hit your friends in the face
that often.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I could. I had a timer sets for every ten minutes,
and sometimes yeah, sometimes I just wouldn't hear it going.
But if I heard it go off, yeah, okay, you'd.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Go, uh.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Maybe that I will come back and think about that
if I need to.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Maybe you can't have loved the deprivation of not of
your family not having enough money. Yeah, but and you said,
really you know you're poor, Like.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
I don't like I didn't like getting bitten by fire ants.
But it's like, oh man, I'm so glad that's over.
I'm sure there's something bigger in my head like you
know there's something bigger in that, Like I guess.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So, But nobody getting bitten by fire ants sucks so
so I mean, it seems.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Like you're.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Part of your way to ease your heart is to
be dismissive of some of those things, because if you
know you and want your kid get bitten by fire ants, right.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
But I will say that things affect me more when
I see them affect other people, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yes, I saw me separately, and I'm saying this doesn't
bother me. That doesn't bother me. But if I were
standing by and I saw something that happened to me,
I would say, hey, that's not right to somebody else,
but not to when it happens to me.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
To me, I just figure like I can handle it,
and it's unfair to me to watch somebody do that
to someone else. Right, I do miss. I do not
miss the like when you were talking about the poorness,
the tension that was in the house on bill paying day,
when I see my mom and dad sitting there counting
(40:55):
out money and deciding what was going to get paid
or what was not going to get paid. So that
but like even that, I have to dig deep the thing.
I okay, yea, so maybe that, but there's nothing that
sticks out in my head.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
But that's all right. That's a good thing to get.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Thank god. That one time, Billy Y Williams, I was
joking with him about the casting couch and I was saying,
oh man, I'm so glad that we don't have to
sleep with people for jobs anymore, and he goes, thank
god that ships over. He was dead serious. I was
like what, and He's like, if you knew how many
women I had to sleep with to get work in
(41:29):
the early days, thank god, that's so yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Wow, what that was an option?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
I guess so I didn't know either.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Maybe it wasn't an option for us.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
It might have been. Maybe we never checked it.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
An option for Billy D.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Maybe we never checked.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Have you ever walked into an audition and said who
do I need to sleep with every time? And I
won't leave until I get this role every time?
Speaker 2 (41:53):
And no hands go up? None, no, no, none none.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
See, I've never tried it.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
So it's like if I said, who do I have
to pay? The handsmarm?
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Okay, who do I have to pay to sleep with
pay to meet to maybe sleep, meet me maybe. Uh.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
So now it's time for the moment of joy.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yes, a moment of joy.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Uh And this is where you my guess. Yeah, it
tells me something that gives you joy, maybe even something
that we could all take from to give joy from.
But it can't be your family, and it can't be work.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Okay, if it can't be family and it can't be work, Like,
simple things bring me joy, Like we talked about people.
I love. I love children. I literally love watching children
light up when they're playing. I like that. I like
that whole freedom thing of there are no boundaries. Yesterday
(42:55):
I was walking through the airport and I had my
luggage in as a newer bag, and it's got great
fucking wheels. It's got great wheels. I was throwing it in,
I was pushing it in front of me and making
it twisting circles and then catching up to it. And
then I went, oh shit, I'm fifty nine. Maybe somebody
thinks I shouldn't be doing yes, but I'm not going
(43:16):
to stop twisting this bag around. And then I thought,
this is exactly what an eight year old boy would
be doing right now. And then I did not stop,
and then I started using it like it was a
race car, because they have these weird lines now through
some of the airport, like showing you where you're going.
So I think it is just that unabandoned, non judgmental
(43:38):
thing that I see children doing.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
All right, But the career choice that you've made is
to be playing yes. So that's what you do for
a living. That is the thing literally that you get
to do every day when you're in the improv group,
when you're doing acting your voice, you're playing yes.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
That's fantastic, And I did, Like I caught myself playing
yesterday in the airport. I was already playing the game,
throwing my luggage and twisting it before I realized.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I do it all the time I play. I make
funny voices, I make jokes to myself in the car
if there's a if there's a rock in my path
and I'm gonna try and kick the rock down there,
keep it in play until it falls off the car, exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
I kind of let that rock go exactly Yeah, because
we're playful. I hope that that's true of everybody, but
I just don't know it.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I will tell you that my son, uh, and I
know you have one.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I remember telling my son, like we were driving home,
we were driving away from our house and people were
coming home from work and they had the glazed look
on their faces, and I remember saying to him, son,
never be that guy, Never be that guy in that
car coming home with that look in your on your face.
Find something that brings you joy. Seek joy. And he goes,
(44:54):
I don't. I don't seek joy. That's not what I do.
And I was like, what do you seek any He said,
I seek truth, like I just want the truth. And
then I said to him, well that's your joy. Finding
truth is your joy, and he goes, no, you just
want that to be my joy. I just seek the truth, right.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah, So I don't think everybody.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Does seek joy like people like. I don't know. Now
I should ask him, now, I should ask him again.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Does he find the truth. I'm very interested in this.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
He is definitely. He does not like any bullshit from anything.
He would rather you just tell him flat out what
the deal is. He told me when he was three
that there was no Santa Claus like he told me,
so he would just rather tell you flat out what
the deal is. And he will deal with the repercussions.
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
That's a very interesting person. I was a flosphy major,
and I in college discovered that as much as you
try to seek the truth, there's no one answer. It's tough.
It's tough. But maybe your son knows, maybe he has
the truth.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
You might Yeah, you may need to go back to college.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
I may. All right, Well, garyfy Williams. Thank you for
being this or am I joke?
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Heret We're so done? Did it?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
It was? It was great hanging with you, great getting
to know you a little bit better, and great being
able to tell you I like your who you are.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I can't believe we literally shook hands on friendship.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yes, we literally no friends. We're no longer acquaintances. We're
not friends.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I wish it were. I wish I wasn't an antisematic.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
We can work on that. We can work. I'm happy.
Well you could pull me into your point of view,
May I should be?
Speaker 1 (46:33):
I understand.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
I understand, and so thank you for being here. Thank you,
thank you for being here. Please write to me at
dB A w JK at gmail dot com with all
your common suggestions, like the show, share the show, go
to the substack, all the things you're supposed to do,
but mainly figure out a time this week to have
a conversation with somebody. Right, how could they not like
this show?
Speaker 1 (46:54):
No?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
No, there's like a button you have to press a lot.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
But how could they not? Though?
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Oh I don't know. But even worse, how do they
not subscribe? Tuning in and not subscribe?
Speaker 1 (47:02):
What's wrong?
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's right, it's evil. You gotta subscribe.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
I swear to you if they leave their address, if
they leave their home address up there and they don't subscribe,
I will go. I'll go to their home.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Oh is there anything that you want to promote before
we get Oh?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah sure sure. Look for Who's Live
Is It Anyway? Coming to a town near you? The
live Whose line is It Anyway? And I have several
new cartoons coming up, but one that's very exciting is
called iy of Wakanda, which is the new Black Panther
cartoon that Todd Harris created. Fantastic that will be on soon.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Okay, fantastic, So look for Gary Anthony Williams and that. Yeah,
and I look for you guys next time.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Hey, can't say one last thing? Sure, Malcolm in the Middle.
We just did a four episode right boot of Malcolm
in Them.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
It's coming out on Disney Plus very soon. It's going
to be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I'm done talking, Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
In the Middle. It's it's really that four episode thing is.
It's you know how they reboot stuff and it sucks.
This is actually good.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
This is the opposite of I Swear to you, I
swear to you. This is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, it's pretty good. Anyway, see you next time. Don't
be alone with J. J.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Cogain.
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