August 12, 2022 • 47 mins
NBC’s “New Amsterdam” star Tyler Labine sat down with Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk. In the newest episode, Labine shares his personal struggle with his weight and how it led to him using his platform to tackle social issues such as obesity and eating disorders.
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(00:06):
This is On the Edge, apodcast series from the Creative Coalition featuring conversations
with an edge and chats with personalitiesfrom the world of entertainment. Now here's
your host, Creative Coalition CEO RobinBronk. Hello, Hello everyone, and
thank you for joining us on today'sepisode of On the Edge. Today,
(00:27):
I am delighted to be joined byone of the stars of NBC's hit show
New Amsterdam. Actor and comedian TylerLavine plays doctor Iggy from on that hit
show. Tyler, you are inthe hot scene. We've been focusing on
this issue of obesity, of destigmatizingit, and you are changing hearts and
(00:50):
minds, and I wanted to talka little bit about that. So I
don't know if you remember meeting me, but I met you in the New
Amsterdam Gang when you were filming theepisode about a patient who had obesity.
I do remember meeting you. Yeah, Well, let's talk about New Amsterdam
a little bit for those very fewwho haven't seen it yet. What's the
premise of your show? What's thelog line? Oh, well, I
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mean the elevator pitch would be it's, you know, America's oldest public hospital
and it's about a group of Maverickdoctors who are kind of out there trying
to get the best care for theirpatients and deal with all the red tape
and bureaucracy of the American medical system, you know, healthcare system. I
mean, Aaron always says is tothe oldest public hospital. What does that
(01:34):
mean? I mean, Bellevue isthe oldest public hospital in America, and
that's in New York. Yeah,and I think it was seventeen late seventeen
eighties, I think is when it'sfrom. And yeah, it's still there.
They built like a big hospital aroundBellevue, but you can still you
go on the atrium in the originalold hospital. The atrium. It's like
(01:57):
a city. It has its ownlike courthouses and like a branch of government.
That's not true, but there it'shuge, and it's um yeah,
it's public. It's public. Anda lot of people think that it's like
Arkham Asylum. It's got this reputationas being like the Madhouse. Yeah,
honestly, that's what I thought itwas. Most people think that's what it
is. And so when I wentthere and heard that, I met with
(02:20):
doctor Jennifer Havens, who runs theShe's more of the children's psychiatric department there,
but it's huge, and the psychward there is like has like five
hundred beds. It's massive. Theyhave schools in there. It's crazy,
crazy facility that people don't realize likethey have they have a prison in there.
It's not in the psych ward inthe hospital, but it's like its
own little city. It's like itsown standalone city. I guess. We
(02:44):
worked with you all on the storyarc, this obesity story arc. It
was I guess now it's been twoyears. It was originally at the end
of season two and it got there'sa whole story there. We can get
into it if you want, butyeah, I definitely want to get into
it. Tell me about doctor Iggyfrom Who Is Your Character? And it
was sort of started as this kindof quirky story arc, but it kind
(03:06):
of triggered you, right, yeah, yeah, So doctor Iggy and he's
a psychiatrist. Right, Well that'sa funny thing too, Like when we
started the show, he was achild psychiatrist, you know. And when
I say child, I mean youknow, eighteen another And we quickly ran
into a few issues with the medicalcommunity saying like, well, what is
he a psychologist or a psychiatrist,because he was, you know, he
(03:28):
was behaving much more sort of likea psychologist, you know, really kind
of you know, arn't therapy talktherapy, holistic approach to therapy, and
you know, the psychiatric and psychologistcommunity we're a little like, hey man,
We've taken a lot of care andtime to differentiate the two. You
know, you can't just conflate thetwo on TV and be like, I'm
an everything ist. So David Showing, our showrunner, was like, well,
(03:52):
we obviously we don't want to limityour story pool, so we're going
to make you Chair of Behavioral Studies, and that became the official title of
Iggy. So he kind of isn'teverything ist. So I guess the gist
of Iggy is that he's a veryvery incredibly passionate psychologist and psychiatrist, mostly
for children, and kind of hefits into that group of Mavericks because he'll
(04:15):
kind of color outside the lines oftenand often at his own peril. He's
also an incredibly flawed human being,which I love playing. I guess that
would be a good segue into wherethe disordered eating and eating disorder and body
dysmorphia storyline came from Yeah, Imean I know from what we heard was
we had pitched and brought you know, this storyline in about obesity an interesting
(04:41):
enough, it hadn't been covered OBChadn't been covered I don't think in new
Ams term. Really no, no, not at all when you saw the
script or you know, how didit the storyline for the woman who wanted
the skin removal? You mean yeah, that so there had already been Will
you give us a little snapshot ofthat storyline? Yeah? Sure. So
there was a woman who had hadlost a lot of weight and I believe
(05:02):
it had gastric bypass surgery, butnobody had told her, you know,
or informed her sufficiently that she wasgoing to have a lot of excess skin,
which is what happens for a lotof people. And not only was
it uncomfortable and embarrassing for her,she was getting lesions and sores all over
her body, which is also true, and that happens to a lot of
patients and they're not covered medically orthey don't have the insurance coverage to get
(05:26):
the skin removable surgery. So youknow, a lot of people have to
live with this incredibly uncomfortable and potentiallylife threatening byproduct of losing all this weight,
which is what they've been told todo. You know, this is
how you get to be happy,and then you're saddled with this whole new
problem that medical healthcare providers don't theydon't consider coverable, you know, and
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you like that as a storyline youwere able to which often happens on New
Amsterdam. You think outside the boxwhere we had to diagnose her with some
melanoma, some skin cancer so thatshe could have the skin areas removed.
And it was like it wasn't quitelying. It was Maverick doctoring like we
said, but there was some somesketchy looking moles and things, and so
(06:11):
Freema who plays doctor Sharp and Icame up with a plan that if we
could convince her HMO that she neededto have skin mouble because of cancer,
it would be covered, but notfor the reason she was actually in there
for. So when you saw thisepisode, was it meaningful to you to
touch a chord? Yeah? Youknow, any storyline, any representation about
(06:32):
weight loss or obesity that I've seenbefore, and anything we had touched on
which I'll go back and talk aboutthe original trigger for my kind of storyline.
It always hits me in a veryuncomfortable spot. I'd never really seen
any like care taken, you know, to tell this story or to tell
(06:53):
overall stories about sort of physical transformationsand not only the physical sort of pain,
but the mental toll that it takeson people. And and that storyline
was really interesting too, because thiswoman was like she was being torn apart
emotionally after doing something that she thoughtwas going to be the cure, you
know. And I think that thatsort of triggered something for me. This
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idea that we can't be happy functioningmembers of society of for obese is bullshit
and it's misinformation. And I understandthat there are health issues, but the
whole BMI scale, everything that hasbeen sort of, i think, sort
of given to us, handed tous as these very sort of catch all
reasons that being overweight is bad andit's bad for your health. Isn't actually
(07:40):
that true. Yes, there arehealth and safety risks, you know,
if you get to a certain levelof obesity. But anyway, it just
always triggers me because I feel likeno one ever really talks about that.
No one talks about that, likewhat if you are a happy, healthy,
overweight person, but you still getthe same stigma. There's still the
same stigma. So it triggered mein that regard where she was talking about
(08:03):
being stared at more now that shehad lost the weight, but it was
very subtle. They wrote in therethat earlier she had become accustomed to the
way to the certain type of stairs, and that really hit me. She's
like, yeah, because people dopeople feel like it's still okay to judge
and look and like publicly sort ofheckel overweight people and it's the only it's
(08:26):
like the only acceptable I say acceptablevery loosely, but it's like the only
acceptable thing I think that people stillfeel okay to openly judge and throw very
offensive words around and hurtful words aroundwithout thinking about it. It's the last
of the stigmatized diseases. Yeah,it seems, you know, like we
(08:46):
could never I was interesting. Iwas watching some pretty contemporary shows the other
night from probably five seven years ago, and they don't hold up. No,
I know, isn't it. It'sso it's not even a cancel culture
thing. It's just a cringe thingthat. Yeah, and it's good because
(09:07):
we is human being should be evolvingand should be working better. But obesity,
there's the health factor. Two,there's no other disease. We actually
just did a PSA. I'll saidit. You haven't seen it with talking
about if someone had epilepsy, youwouldn't say, oh, you know,
just smile more, it'll be better. Or if someone broke their arm,
(09:31):
you wouldn't say, don't go tothe doctor, you're fine. Yeah,
Or you wouldn't say, well,you shouldn't be engaging in physical activity.
No, it's your fault, right, Just to take that one step further.
That's how I feel about mental healthas well, Like when did it
become like separate from health? Mentalhealth and health. I don't know where
the separation. Like you wouldn't judgesomeone or think that they were weak if
(09:54):
they had a degenerative heart disease,right, or they have type two diabetes.
Yeah, with obesity, you lookat it. You know, the
way we as humans seem to processit is the person's sloppy making bad decisions
and we know that. Yeah,we don't make that judgment on any other
even you know, if you lookat alcoholism or mental illness or like you
(10:16):
know which by the way, Ihave both you are a renaissance man.
But my friend of mine, WillSasso, had a really interesting interview we've
both been on Ethan Sue Please podcastAmerican Glutton. Yeah, he's gone through
a huge physical transformation and have looseextra skin and all that. And Will
Sasso said on there at one pointhe's like, very sarcastically, He's like,
(10:37):
oh, yeah, because everybody who'soverweight she wants that. It's like
there's some belief that like, yeah, you chose it. You're like,
yeah, you pig, you wantto be fat, You're sad, You've
chosen to do this thing. Soyou know, you made your bed,
lion it. And it's like,can you say that about any other No,
that's what I'm saying. You don'tlook at someone and say you chose
(10:58):
to have that disease. Yeah,you know, but it still isn't regarded
as being in the same category forsome reason as a disease you know,
growing up, what was it?Like, Well, okay, so let
me walk it back a sec.So the original sort of at the beginning
of the pulling at the corner ofthe sticker for me on this show was
(11:20):
that they had written in this verysort of backburner quirky eating storyline with Iggy,
where he would be like eating allthese like walking around with a bag
of carrots and the pilot a bagof crudete and eating that, and then
you know, the next episode he'dbe in the break room shoveling gummy worms
in his mouth kind of by himself, you know, and it was sort
(11:41):
of like funny, like, oh, he's really just stress eating, and
then it started to become more andmore. Obviously that was like a thing
they would show Iggy like after havinglike a really you know, stressful day,
he'd be like shoveling chocolate in hismouth or whatever. And I just
kind of, like I said toDavid Foster he was on set one day,
I kind of David is just soeveryone. He's a writer, executive
(12:01):
producer and is actually a doctor aswell. He noticed my sort of agitation,
I guess you could say, andmy knee jerk reaction a lot of
that stuff was like, fuck off, don't give him a quirky, disordered
eating storyline and then not give itany attention. I have disordered eating,
and I have body dysmorphia, andI have struggled since I was very young,
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since I was about ten years old, eight nine, ten years old,
and when it began, I mean, that's a huge it's a huge
long talk. But eating for meis not something that I'm like, I'm
willing to just kind of like pokeat, you know. And I wasn't
angry at it because most people don'teven realize that that's a thing. So
I said something and I just saidlike, well, if you're gonna do
this, can we do it?Like has anybody ever? Is there room
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here to add that Iggy might havedisordered eating as like a real storyline And
Foster was like, well, yeah, I think probably, you know,
And he was the reason why Iasked me. And then Sean Cassidy,
one of our writers in producers aswell, called me and was like,
hey, man, would you tellme your story like I don't, I
don't know your story with you know, what you've struggled with with your body
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and with eating it. And Itold him that. It was a long
conversation and you know, he tookit all down, and then they asked
me point blank if they could usemy story for a storyline for Iggy and
I was like yeah, And itinvolved a lot of shit. It was
like my dad really body shaming meas a kid, and kids body shaming
me, and my dad putting meon crash diets and taking like shirtless photos
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of me and like making you know, all kinds of things, and then
it all sort of culminated in metrying to commit suicide when I was like
twelve thirteen. So you were gettingthis shame and blame stuff. Yeah,
And my dad was like, also, you know, he got bad information
to his mom, was Mike.Grandma was a nightmare him of being and
his father was a nightmare. SoI don't really blame my dad. I
(13:50):
did. I don't anymore. Theshow has been very cathartic for me.
But anyway, so I talked tothem about it and then I gave them
permission to use it. And thenlow and behold, the script came down
the pike and I I was onset and I read it and it's really
weird. Man. You don't realizehow fucked up your story is until you
see it from a different perspective.There was written on the page coming out
(14:13):
of Iggy's mouth, and I waslike, oh, that sounds so bad,
you know. I was like,I was like embarrassed, and I
kind of I got like really shaky, and I got really emotional, and
I threw the script down and Iwent immediately to write an email to David
Schulner, but instead, first Italked to Janet Montgomery, who is one
of my closest friends on the cast, who plays doctor Bloom, and I
(14:33):
just was like, well, I'mterrified. Man. She was like,
then you have to do it.You have to do this. You gave
him this story for a reason,and like this show is super popular,
and like if you tell this story, think about all the good that could
come from this, and it mightbe really good for you, and you
have to do it. And Iwas like, you're right, You're right.
So we did it. We shotit and it was really crazy and
(14:54):
hard and I literally was like talkingto my dad for a lot of those
takes and blah blah blah. Anyway, shot it. It was really insane.
My mom was actually visiting, shewas in town while we were show,
really and she like read the scriptthat I accidentally left out on the
table. You know, you couldprobably talk freud about that one, but
it was a huge opportunity for mymom and I'd have a big breakthrough conversation.
(15:16):
I ended up having a big breakthroughconversation with my dad about all kinds
of things, who I was kindof a strange with for quite a while.
And then the reaction from fans,like after it came out was incredible.
Men, oh man, the men. Well it like, tell me
about some of the fans because thisis this untold story that you guys,
yeah broke. I mean, soI knew shooting it that. I was
(15:41):
like, I've never seen this.I've never seen this candidly spoken about,
you know, about a man alsoa man who looks like me, a
man who also, by the way, has spent most of my career playing
like the funny fat guy for lackof a better term. It was what
I got called the schlub. Youknow, all that stuff that was my
bread and butter, and you burya lot of shit when it's your paycheck,
you know. So I had neverseen this. And some of the
(16:04):
first responses I got was when Davidand I went to Atlanta to do this,
Like we were talking about the showat SCAD for this like TV festival
they have there, and David andI went and did like a panel about
this really and there was like justlike college kids, men my age,
older men getting up approaching us,crying, telling me. They're like,
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oh my god, I've never seenanybody like you know, guys who you
would That's the thing. The problemis that you hear this phrase a lot.
I never would have guessed, Like, guys, you never would guess.
It's like, yeah, you neverguess because it's like that's not even
a guess, that is an option. You know, we don't talk about
it, so it's just these guys. But then when I really knew it
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was really impactful was when like friendsof mine, family members and friends of
mine who were like you know,seemingly unaffected their entire lives about things just
started like confessing to me about howmuch pain they carried around and how amazing
it was to see that representation,not just because it was me, because
that's one thing, but for themto see it period. And then the
conversations we had afterwards, and theconversations I've been having ever since, like
(17:12):
even this one. You know,this is like two years ago, and
it's still something that I think people. I don't know if anybody else has
even covered it. I think wemight be the only one right now,
And it's just the impact. Ididn't know. I didn't know how impactful
it was going to be. Itjust felt very personal and challenging, and
I was like doing something brave forme. But I realized later, I
(17:33):
was like, oh man, thisis like this is one of those moments.
This is when pop culture can actuallyhave like an effect on hopefully an
effect on the future. You know. Yeah, it's crazy. This is
all fertile ground for change. Yeah. And I'm the first person to say,
yes, the great part about youknow, show business and the entertainment
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industry is that you have a superpower. Every week you're speaking to millions and
influencing millions and millions of people.Yeah, And I think, you know,
it's so exciting what you're doing.So now you have this whole storyline
around your character. Where do yousee the future of doctor Iggy? Yeah,
(18:17):
Driggy as I like to call him. I'd like to say one more
thing about the show without being tooyou know, aggrandizing, but like,
I think the thing that's cool aboutthe show is that it does that all
over the place. I'm not theonly example of that. There's like inclusivity.
I've never like I've never seen before, so I love the show for
that. But I think the futureof doctor Iggy is like really up in
(18:40):
the air right now. He's kindof like we've pushed the envelope so far
with how flawed he is that Ithink some people are like, can he
really is he certified? Like canhe be a therapist? He might just
need more therapy than but why Iwould never go see a therapist that didn't
need therapy, That's my opinion.So I think they've put him through the
ringer with a few things like tryingto adopt a kid without telling his husband.
(19:02):
He's now like hired this new assistant, this hot Australian guy that he's
kind of like flirting with, butit's like, what are you doing,
buddy. They had him try tostop seeing patience, and you know he's
been forced back into that and likeso there's a lot of them pushing I
guess the sort of the tenacity ofthis character, like how much can he
come back from? What I wouldlike to see is like I really want
(19:26):
to really want to see any funlike like hit his stride at this point,
I'm like, I want I wantto see him get his Mojo back,
man. I want to see himlike really feeling himself and like that
burning from the inside out with likeconfidence and you know, feeling himself.
But the cool thing about this showis like this season was called like Finding
Your Joy, And the thing aboutfinding joy is like, it's not joyful.
(19:47):
It's not joyful finding your joy.That shit's hard, man, it's
bumpy. So I like it.I like playing the really bumpy road to
joy and who knows how long itis. I mean, you chase the
best profession to bumpy road to enjoythe entertainment, to be an actor.
So you grew up in Canada,right, Yeah? Yeah, I grew
up in different parts of Canada.Yeah you were on the lamb in Canada.
(20:10):
Yeah. I was hiding out.I was coiled. I think I
was lying in Wait. Yeah,I grew up in Brampton, Ontario,
and then I moved from there toVancouver, like a suburb of Vancouver called
Maple Ridge when I was thirteen.When did you come stateside? When?
Or why? Why? Well?Why? Yeah? That is a good
question, counity Robin. If thisis the place, man, I actually
(20:33):
just got my citizenship like a monthago. Really, so wait, so
that's one for our team. That'samazing. Yeah, you guys, wait,
you got me. Canada suffered aterrible blow losing me. I'll tell
you that. I'll take you.I moved here when I was twenty.
I moved to la I had,you know, I'd done like Vancouver was
(20:56):
like a hotbed of sci fi televisionactivity, X Files and First Wave and
Millennium and everything shot Vancouver and Icut my chops just doing like guest stars
on all these shows. And thenI did this show called Breaker High with
Ryan Gosling and I where we werekids who went to school on a cruise
ship. Super super cutting edge aswell, very inclusive, the stupidest show
(21:21):
of all time, but it wasit was fun and it like sort of
blew up. And then I hitmy ceiling in Canada, you know,
like that's that was like the heightof Canadian fame for me. I was
like getting chased around malls and stuff, and then I kind of got burnt
out. I didn't think I wantedto act anymore. I started looking for
other things to do. No onewanted to hire me. I was overexposed
in Canada, and then I gotthis audition for a pilot on the WB
(21:44):
with Nicky Cox and she was kindof hot shit at the time, and
I came down. I flew downto LA and tested with her and I
didn't get it. But while Iwas there, we did a screen test
together for her show called The NickyCock Show. I think it was called
Nikki. And then I got tomake out with Keycocks for a minute in
an audition, and then I didn'tget the part. I found out like
then and there, like I leftand I got the phone call you can
(22:04):
get it. But back in theday, like if you were on a
lot testing sometimes this crazy thing wouldhappen where they'd be like, oh,
Tyler Leban is on the lot rightnow, do you want him to come
over and read for this other thing? And I went and read for this
other thing called dead Last that DeepenSentas and Steve Pink and Patrick O'Neill wrote.
They're the guys who wrote like highfidelity and gross point blank and part
(22:26):
of the actor's gang. And Iwent over and met with them in like
this very casual sort of setting,and within like an hour they were like,
we want you to test for that. And I came back the next
morning and tested before and booked it, and they shot the pilot in Vancouver,
and then the show got picked upand moved to LA which is never
the way it happens. It's usuallylike they shoot the pilot and then they
let's go shoot a cheaper in Canada. They wanted to shoot in LA,
(22:48):
and so the show got picked up. They got me a visa, and
I moved to LA and then Ijust never looked back. I just kept
getting those guys signed me to abunch of development deals, and I kept
developing shows with them in different networks, and those guys a lot. And
you've been consistently working. I waslooking at your Wikipedia pages and pages,
and you've done some really interesting You'vedone a lot of voiceover. Yeah.
(23:12):
Yeah, you're a major voice inUltron Vultron. Yeah, I mean,
listen to this tool I have listen. Yeah, you are a tool.
I mean yeah, you can't haveone without the other. It takes a
real tool to have this voice,and you are a real tool. I
did, I did, I did. Voltron Vultron is a again a very
(23:34):
realistic show, hyper realistic show aboutthese lions that are also robots that also
joined together to form a bigger robotcalled Vultron who is the defender of the
galaxy and the universe, all basedon true facts, true events, and
I have been played the left legof the giant robot named Hunk. He's
(23:55):
the Yellow Lion. And as acartoon from the eighties, like when I
was a kid, it was oneof the earliest examples I can think of
of like really bad anime making itsway to the continental United States in Canada,
and it was like, this iswhat they would do. They would
take like bits from all the differentepisodes and just mash it together and then
dub it over. So it nevermade any sense. But man as a
(24:18):
kid, like lyon Robots in Space, forget it? I mean, is
it? So? I love Vultron. And when I heard they were making
Vultron a reboot on Netflix with DreamWorks, I was like, can I can
I get in there? And they'relike, yeah, I've done some voiceworking
out a ton and they were like, yeah, you can read for Hunk
and he's like he's like a seventeenyear old boy. And I was like,
oh, yeah, I can dothat. And I went in there
(24:40):
and read and I got it.But it was like I was put on
probation. Netflix and DreamWorks was like, yeah, we're gonna let him do
three episodes and see if he canreally like get younger. Can you sound
younger? So I had to workon like how to get so wait,
so the name of the character ishunk. Hunk. Yeah, so what's
your hunk? Can you still doyour hunk voice? Can I hear a
little bit of the young tool?So here's the thing. I had a
(25:03):
different voice. I've had vocal surgerysince then. I used to sound like
this when I talked all the time. So to like sound younger for me,
I just had to like really comeup, you know. And a
lot of it was like really justbeing super enthusiastic about everything. All guys
come on, you know. Andhe was like really like I don't know,
that's the best I can do rightnow. But it was like cute.
(25:25):
It's I mean, I mean thatthat was really cute. He was
like, he's like the really enthusiastic. I love that. He was a
pilot, but he got motion sickness, so it was always like, guys,
I'm gonna throw up. Oh,guys, I'm gonna throw up wrong,
And you'd like throw up into likethe head of the lion multiple times.
So there's a lot of fun hadand I love that cast, which
included Stephen Yuan Now Academy Award nomineeyou know name nominated actors Stephen Young and
(25:49):
Bex Taylor Claus and Josh Keaton andKimberly Brooks and A. J. Lacascio
and Rhese Darby and all these people. That was just like and Jeremy Shada
was really great cast of people whowere like way more experienced than me with
voiceover, and I went in thereand they just like schooled me. It
was fun. How does one dovoiceover? So are you there with the
(26:11):
other characters? Are you doing yourthing yourself? Common question? It's a
mixture, like when I did likea Monster's University for Pixar, and I've
done like, you know, wordGirl, and I've done some like cartoons,
And it depends if you were like, schedule is a little bit difficult
to work out oftentimes when we weredoing Vultron, I was also shooting my
(26:32):
show Deadbeat on Hulu, and I, you know, I was off doing
other things in whatever city I wasin. They would just hook up a
studio for me to go in anddo my part. But when I was
in La, yeah, we wereall oftentimes we were all in a room
together, and that ship got crazywhen there was like six of us in
there, goofing off and trying tomake up, and it's a pretty funny
(26:52):
show. It was Mayhem and ourdirector Andrea Romano, who's like a legend
in the voiceover industry, turned intolike our babysitter. She would just like,
guys, guys, you know,we were just like a bunch of
unruly kids. So I think eventuallythey started not bringing us in together.
I think they were like, webetter separating the class. What about Monsters
(27:14):
University? Tell me about that.That must have been fun, What a
crazy experience. So I was justsitting in my living room one afternoon in
Vancouver and I got a phone callfrom agent and he was like, Hey,
can you fly to San Francisco thisafternoon? And I was like,
I yes, I'm available, LikeI don't what do you mean? He
(27:37):
was like, yeah, Pixar wantsto fly you to Emeryville, load to
San Francisco, and then drive youto Emeryville to the Pixar their main headquarters.
Oh my god, so yes,I got on a plane. They
didn't tell me any details of whatI was doing. I just knew that
I was going to go and meetCorey Ray and Dance Scanlon who directed and
(28:00):
produced, and then they went onto do that new one with Chris Pratt
and Tom Holland called Brothers. Ithink. Anyway, I was really excited.
I didn't have any details, nolines, nothing to look at.
They just said they really love youfor the part. And so I got
there and I went into the studio. It's like it's like going into Willy
Wonka's chocolate factory if you like cartoonsPixar. It's just like everywhere you looked
(28:22):
was like oh oh oh, ohmy god. There's Woody and there's you
know. And they have like likethe craziest like gift shop. And they
took me there right away and liketake anything you want. What do you
want? I'm like to do anaudition. They're like, yeah, take
whatever you want. And so Igrabbed some stuff from my kids and and
they like walked me around and tookme into a like a recording booth and
(28:45):
he showed me like a little previz of the movie, like just like
a very crude cut of some stuffand they're like, Okay, this is
your character, Brock. And mycharacter comes up and it's already voiced.
It's this voice and the character goinglike and it was really funny, and
I was like oh, and itsounded really familiar. I was like,
who is that? Like why don'tyou just use that guy? And they're
(29:06):
like, that's you. We justtook snippets from other performances and piece the
other some dialogue and just to putit in as a previous And I was
like, oh, well, Iguess I really better not fuck this up
now, like you've already used myvoice. If I don't get the part,
that's a little weird. Wow,that is fascinating. Yeah, And
so I went into the audition withthat mind like kind of being like what
(29:29):
oh man, So like I'm theprototype, but if I'm auditioning for it,
and if I blow it, that'sreally weird. Right, we're avatar,
we get the role, but notyou? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
man, that's the slippery slope.So I went into the booth and
I started recording and Dan was like, so everything this guy says is like
screamed. He's the most yelly topof his lungs enthusiastic character, and like
(29:53):
I said, I had this.I had this different rasp of your voice
at the time, and he waslike, just go for it, man,
and we started recording and they're laughing, and it's like an hour,
two hours, three hours, fourhours, five hours. I'm there and
we're just doing this. We're justgoing and going and going, and I
start realizing, like halfway through,I'm like, this is the gig.
(30:14):
I'm doing it, and if theyput it into the movie and it sucks,
they'll just do this again with anotheractor. They'll bring a guy in
and be like, we have apre visit of your voice. And so
I was like, oh, thispicks us so genius. Man. They're
just like, this is the laststage in making these films. They don't
they've done everything else. They justwant someone to come in and get it
right. So we did it andDan walked me out, and by that
point I was like, yeah,but this was really fun. Man.
(30:36):
He was like, yeah, gorest your voice, and we're gonna keep
you here for one more night.We might need you again tomorrow. I
was like okay, And then Igot a new car. I was driving
to the airport to the hotel andthey called and they said, actually,
you're good, you can go.We got everything we needed and I called
my age in the next day.I was like, so did I get
the part? He was like,yeah, you did it. You're gonna
have a check probably in like youknow, a week. That's it.
They said they might need you forone more session, in which they did,
(30:57):
which was like a couple of weekslater, and I went into one
more session and then I was inMunster's University. Was it so your character
in Monsters University? It was apreppy what was that a bird? Yeah,
he's like he's like a like ahippogriff. He's like a hawk like
lion like. Yeah, he hadlike horns and it was kind of preppy
(31:18):
too. I remember that it waslike a liger. Yeah, he was
definitely. He was like a jock, like a big letterman jacket on.
And he was the vice president ofthe Greek Counsel in Aubrey. Plaza was
the president, and we did itto get We never met except for the
never met. You just did yourthing. Yeah. The whole bunch of
people was like Charlie Day and Seanfrom a Will and Grace, Sean Oh,
(31:42):
Sean Hayes, Sean Hayes, thankyou. Sean Hayes who I met
at the premiere, whom sat rightby him. He was lovely and yeah,
it was a weird process, youknow, like I showed up with
my now ex wife but wife atthe time to the premiere and we were
just like, let's go meet allthese crazy talented people that we love.
Yeah, it was neat. Anddidn't you do something on sunny in Philadelphia?
(32:02):
It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, those guys
are my buddies. Like Glenn Howardsonand I are really close. Glenn guests
start on a series of Mind onABC in like two thousand and four called
That was then he had not blownup yet, as they say, and
we just stayed in touch. Andanyway, I'd always been like man in
love to be on Sonny and hewas just like, we just don't do
(32:23):
guest stars, you know, likethey have very very rarely have guest stars.
It was always about the game.They have like some recurring smaller parts,
but they were like trying to findsomething for me. And then finally
Glenn was like, we have thisone dumb small part, but like me
and Charlie and I know Charlie andRob pretty well too, well, not
Charlie but Rob. And they werelike, do you want to just come
and do like a fun day AndTodd Bierman was directing, who was a
(32:44):
buddy of mine who directed a bunchof my show on Hulu, Deadbeat,
And I just came on and justgot to like be a bully to those
guys on this one day and itwas really fun. There's nothing better than
bully for a day. Yeah,getting paid for it. Yeah. I
got to get in Rob mcleanny's faceand be like you want to go,
buddy? And it was Rhett.Were you a fan of the show,
(33:05):
had you mean yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah major. They bring quirky
to a new level. Yeah,they bring quirky And you know, it's
funny for a show that was likealways towing the line right, Like,
I'm sure there are episodes you goback now and be like, oh,
I don't know if we can saythat they've always gotten away with everything and
now they've become like a beacon forinclusivity. Their show has become this juggernaut
(33:30):
of inclusivity. You know, withRob's character being gay, there's like trans
representation on the show. They leaveno stone left unturned. They're really like,
even though they're crass and crew,they're all about inclusivity and I love
that. I love that about thatshow. Now you're at one of the
regulars on this hit show. Yeah, how is episode of TV treating you?
(33:52):
Do you like the schedule? Imean, yeah, yeah, it's
good. You know, like I'vedone. This is like probably like my
I think it's my fourteenth TV series, which is kind of crazy to think
about. And I have never donefour seasons on the show. Deadbeat was
the longest, and that was threeseasons and those were really short seasons.
They were ten, thirteen, andthirteen. So I've never done twenty two
(34:13):
episode long term, like four seasonsof twenty two episodes of a show.
And I thought, oh man,what a slog. That's going to kill
me. It's like ten months outof the year. I'm in New York,
my family's in California, but likeit's such a big show. The
cast. I mean that, likeI probably worked four days in episode,
sometimes five, sometimes more, butusually i'd say like half the days I
(34:35):
have off, So I usually they'rekind of kind with the scheduling, and
I get to fly home when leavingon Friday to go see my kids for
four days. And it's not bad. I hear it. Like a lot
of my friends, I won't namethem here, but who have been on
long standing you know, running shows, especially procedurals, are just like dying.
They're just like, oh my god, it's my golden handcuffs, you
know, like you make sure youkeep yourself busy with other endeavors, you
(34:58):
know, like you're gonna be therefor a long I'm not finding it to
be that way. I find theshow really. I did come from comedy
and this is kind of like myforay into more dramatic work. I'm really
just trying to leach all the experientialreward I can out of this show,
you know, So I don't findit to be unchallenging or boring by any
means. I'm like, I'm lovingit. That's right. I was reading
(35:19):
and you had your roots in comedy. What's your opinion of our cancel culture
here in our great country. Yeah, you know, cancel culture is definitely
you know, Canada is not immuneto cancel culture. But I have a
lot of thoughts on cancel culture.I'm a forty three year old man,
white cis gender man. Okay,yablishing, as you can see as evidenced,
(35:45):
the term itself, cancel culture justkind of says it all right.
It's like, well, it's justeverything is expendable. I just don't agree.
I think it is good that wehave now started to be much more
comfortable to say what we don't wantto put up with anymore, what we
shouldn't put up with anymore, whatpeople are tired of being, you know,
(36:05):
living with and feeling underrepresented or overrepresentedor anything that. I think that
as in general, that people arefeeling uncomfortable and now we have a place
and a platform to say what wedon't like. I think that's good.
Ricky Gervais posted this thing a coupleof weeks ago, and it said like
when someone says like, we can'tjoke about anything anymore, He's like,
that's the most ridiculous thing I've everheard. You can joke about whatever the
(36:28):
fuck you want. Just know thatpeople are going to tell you whether they
don't like it or not, andthen you do what you want. That
information you can either carry on oryou can adjust. The choice is yours.
And I was like, yeah,that's really the gist of it.
Although at another level, people arejust getting canceled, right, It's not
just like certain you know, typesof people are getting their lives ruined by
(36:51):
cancel culture. And I've had acouple of friends who have been sort shoot
up in the cancel culture. Melee, I've already said five to ten things
that will offend somebody. I'm sureI have. Yeah, well, I
mean it. Also, you know, we talked about diversity and diverse casting
to your character is gay and you'renot. I don't identify as gay,
(37:12):
but I think you know, I'mlike, i'd say, I'm probably somewhere
in the queer territory. So didyou get any hassle? Well, no,
I mean so. And by theway, that's all fairly new.
These are things I'm coming to termswithin my life post divorce. At the
time, I was really nervous aboutit. I was like, oh shit,
you know, straight guy playing agay guy gay for wait? How
(37:32):
many wait? How many years ago? Is that? That was? In?
What years? Four years ago?There's twenty and eighteen, I think,
And at that point were we lookingat that yeah. I think the
whole idea of like I'd heard theterm gay for pay a few times and
any of that that's really that wasnot a good thing. I also know
that being accepted by the gay communityis make or break, or the LGBTQ
(37:53):
community is make or break for anyrepresentation on TV, and then you kind
of have to like past the guard, you know what I mean, you
have to get let in. SoI was very aware of doing it respectfully,
and I didn't know when I whenI got off of the role.
David Schulder didn't tell me anything aboutthat until we were starting to shoot the
pilot. He was like, whatwould you think about Iggy being gay?
(38:13):
And I was like, oh,yeah, that sounds great. Actually I'd
love to do that. But thenof course the rush of like, oh
fuck, what if that offensive people? And I wasn't sure if I should
do it or anyway. I thought. The one thing I said to David,
which we really agreed on right away, it was like, Okay,
if we're doing this, it's notthe thing. We're not hanging our hat
one. We're not going to hearpart of your fabric of who you are.
(38:37):
I guess it's just he's just agay guy. He's a happily married,
successful man who has four beautiful children, and he's gay. You know,
like it's a proud part of whohe is. But let's not do
like a eggy struggling because he doesn'tcome out at work storyline or his like
disapproving parents come in and you know, gay shame him or you know,
like none of that. We justwanted it to be. And that's when
(38:59):
David was like, well, wewon't even We're having going to mention it
until episode five, and it's goingto be the most casual drop. And
I remember it was coming. Itwas episode five and my character just very
casually says Max says like, hey, you want to do something. I
say, no, I've got dinnerplans with Martin tonight. You know,
I gotta go spend some time withthe husband or whatever. You know,
everything I even said husband, wejust said Martin was implied that I was
(39:20):
hanging out with my signorial name Martin. And I was just waiting. I
was waiting for like the Twitter backlash, for like people to be like what
But it was immediately accepted and applaudedfor the way that we did it.
And my uncle, who was agay man, immediately called me was like,
yeah he's gay, yes, youknow, like right on, man,
And I felt this swell of pride. I was like, I have
(39:43):
an opportunity. I always try tolook for the opportunity, Like I have
an opportunity to be an ally andrepresent in a way that is, like,
I think, the way that ismore honest and accurate to the way
we see the world. You know, it's not like it is on TV.
It's not these like and you know, he's like hammered over the heads
(40:04):
tropes. It's like there's just gaypeople, you know what I mean,
it's part of the fabric. Yes, it's interesting because that kind of leads
back to, you know, wecome full circle with obesity and the representation
of obesity in pop culture because itwas you know, it was the fat
joke. Yeah, that was pervasive, oh man, everywhere, everywhere,
(40:29):
everywhere, And it still is.You know, like people are maybe a
little more sensitive, but like wetalked about, it's still kind of people
are like, yeah, that one'sfine, you can still do that.
The amount of like fat jokes incomedy, the term fat fat jokes,
even the fact that that's like agenre. Fat jokes is like, that's
like a subgenre of comedy. We'rewatching like overweight comics tear themselves apart on
(40:52):
stage because that was the only materialthey felt like they could. Yeah,
I mean, we actually produced ashort film on comedy and obesity, and
one of the comedians that we profilesaid, I have to do the fat
jokes. If I don't, theaudience will be saying, well, does
he know he is? Because Iwant to just come out and say it,
(41:14):
because and the damage, the psychologicaltoll. Like comics, they're already
like the saddest people, Like weknow that, they're already the people that
are like they're just a old sadYeah, turned themselves a parliment, and
then you would watch these comics likejust literally demolish themselves on stage. It's
that, It's exactly that. It'sthey're getting out in front of it.
(41:35):
They're saying it before you are,and that's it. And I've done that
my whole life. And again,getting back to the storyline on New Amsterdam.
Are the writers on target are youfeeding into the storyline? Are you
commenting on it? Are you partof the development of it? Yeah,
I mean Like I said, theinitial sort of foray into it even being
(41:57):
like an actual storyline was because Icouldn't not say something. I'm not taking
all the credit. They had beenbaking something into the cake, and I
don't even know to what degree,but I know that when I mentioned,
like, can we really make somethingout of this, they were like,
what do you got? You know? So when I gave them my actual
story and they wrote it into thescript, I definitely felt like I had
some sort of involvement, more thanI've ever really had before as just an
(42:22):
actor on a show. You know, they let me in and yeah,
some of the stuff and some ofthe disordered eating and the rituals and the
things I was able to comment onand take things from my life and things
that I've done dieting or fat dietingor trying to lose weight that we've been
able to put into the show.And then again, the language I've used
to refer to myself and talk aboutmyself in the past that I try not
(42:44):
to do anymore, you know,the language I'm trying to undo from all
the information I've been given my wholelife is like that stuff, poignant and
powerful stuff. So We've definitely putsome of that in there. I've ad
lived quite a few things where it'sjust like my old really really detrimental language
that I used to talk about myself, not loving myself, not knowing my
(43:05):
worth, you know, all thatstuff. That's all come very organically as
a collaboration. But how do youfeel that it's your own personal story that
you're now acting. It's weird,like that reaction, the throwing the script
down and like seeing it in blackand white and being like, that's not
that's not what I said, That'snot my life. But then you realize,
(43:28):
like, well it is. It'sjust you tell that story to yourself.
You don't even tell it to yourselfanymore. It just is you,
you know what I mean. You'rejust like, it's just your life.
You just accept what your life isuntil you see it represented in some medium,
you know, like you see itwritten and then you're supposed to perform
it and it takes a whole newshape. And it's been really, like
I said, it's been really cathartic. I've actually done some of the most
(43:52):
healing I think I've ever done inmy life around body image, just from
the storyline on this show. Ieven went out and got tattoos. We
shot that season. I got tattoos, let's say, all the good and
all the bad on my biceps.And it was just about me finding unification
within myself and accepting my shadows andmy strength and my weakness is everything.
(44:13):
And like, really I've been ina lot of therapy and it, but
like this show has like really again, I don't want to be too self
aggrandizing, but like this show hasopened up doors for me internally that I
just don't know that I would havebeen in the position to open up before
this, you know, through likebeing able to act dramatically and find like
(44:35):
the truth in something other than representingit comedically has been like a gift because
comics do the same shit. It'sjust that it's more about misdirection. It's
more about manipulating what you see,whereas drama has allowed me to like lay
some stuff flat out on the tableand it just happens to be really personal
stuff. So I've really found likejust even acknowledging or talking about it as
(44:57):
like also, I mean, youare living happened to you? So given
that you know you had a prettyit sounds like somewhat turbulent childhood of downs,
and what would you say to yourtwelve year old self right now?
Yeah, I have done this exercisequite a bit. Oh well, I'm
try and tyler, No, no, no, no, I mean it's
(45:19):
a very poignant. What I meanis by myself, I've tried to be
very loving to my young me.You know, I would tell twelve year
old me that I am worthy oflove, that I am lovable as is.
I wish somehow I can impress upontwelve year old me that, like
what the scale says that day,does not erase or diminish my accomplishments,
(45:45):
you know, like somehow I letmy weight literally immediately take away all my
accomplishments, like everything else doesn't matterbecause I'm overweight. So I'd love to
tell twelve year old me that thatis just a line of absolute horseshit.
Yeah, but just that I'm worthyof love and that I'm lovable as is,
I think is a really important messageto twelve year old me. Thank
(46:07):
you, thank you. Everybody watchedNew Amsterdam ten o'clock on Tuesday nights,
and that's ten o'clock East coast andI guess West coast and you can do
all the travel math. Yeah,it's ten o'clock everywhere. Nine Central,
nine Central. It's always like that, that nine Central growing out, it's
like who are those people? Yeah, who are these Central lights? I
don't know who are after the comma. But thank you Tyler, and I'm
(46:30):
so glad to see you and yeahyou do or to getting together in the
human Yes, in person would begreat. And thank you so much for
having me on, Robin Tyler,thank you so much. That was a
lot, and thank you so muchfor sharing everyone. Please make sure to
(46:52):
come back next time when we welcomefrom Foxes The Resident Author TV writer.
I'm retired surgeon doctor Anthony Chinqui andone of the stars of The Resident Actor
managed dall see everyone. Then you'vebeen listening to On the Edge, a
podcast series from the Creative Coalition,hosted by Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk.
(47:16):
For more information on how you canprotect funding for the arts and harness the
power of the arts to promote socialgood, visit us at the Creative Coalition
dot org.
This is On the Edge, apodcast series from the Creative Coalition featuring conversations
with an edge and chats with personalitiesfrom the world of entertainment. Now here's
your host, Creative Coalition CEO RobinBronk. Hello, Hello everyone, and
thank you for joining us on today'sepisode of On the Edge. Today,
(00:27):
I am delighted to be joined byone of the stars of NBC's hit show
New Amsterdam. Actor and comedian TylerLavine plays doctor Iggy from on that hit
show. Tyler, you are inthe hot scene. We've been focusing on
this issue of obesity, of destigmatizingit, and you are changing hearts and
(00:50):
minds, and I wanted to talka little bit about that. So I
don't know if you remember meeting me, but I met you in the New
Amsterdam Gang when you were filming theepisode about a patient who had obesity.
I do remember meeting you. Yeah, Well, let's talk about New Amsterdam
a little bit for those very fewwho haven't seen it yet. What's the
premise of your show? What's thelog line? Oh, well, I
(01:11):
mean the elevator pitch would be it's, you know, America's oldest public hospital
and it's about a group of Maverickdoctors who are kind of out there trying
to get the best care for theirpatients and deal with all the red tape
and bureaucracy of the American medical system, you know, healthcare system. I
mean, Aaron always says is tothe oldest public hospital. What does that
(01:34):
mean? I mean, Bellevue isthe oldest public hospital in America, and
that's in New York. Yeah,and I think it was seventeen late seventeen
eighties, I think is when it'sfrom. And yeah, it's still there.
They built like a big hospital aroundBellevue, but you can still you
go on the atrium in the originalold hospital. The atrium. It's like
(01:57):
a city. It has its ownlike courthouses and like a branch of government.
That's not true, but there it'shuge, and it's um yeah,
it's public. It's public. Anda lot of people think that it's like
Arkham Asylum. It's got this reputationas being like the Madhouse. Yeah,
honestly, that's what I thought itwas. Most people think that's what it
is. And so when I wentthere and heard that, I met with
(02:20):
doctor Jennifer Havens, who runs theShe's more of the children's psychiatric department there,
but it's huge, and the psychward there is like has like five
hundred beds. It's massive. Theyhave schools in there. It's crazy,
crazy facility that people don't realize likethey have they have a prison in there.
It's not in the psych ward inthe hospital, but it's like its
own little city. It's like itsown standalone city. I guess. We
(02:44):
worked with you all on the storyarc, this obesity story arc. It
was I guess now it's been twoyears. It was originally at the end
of season two and it got there'sa whole story there. We can get
into it if you want, butyeah, I definitely want to get into
it. Tell me about doctor Iggyfrom Who Is Your Character? And it
was sort of started as this kindof quirky story arc, but it kind
(03:06):
of triggered you, right, yeah, yeah, So doctor Iggy and he's
a psychiatrist. Right, Well that'sa funny thing too, Like when we
started the show, he was achild psychiatrist, you know. And when
I say child, I mean youknow, eighteen another And we quickly ran
into a few issues with the medicalcommunity saying like, well, what is
he a psychologist or a psychiatrist,because he was, you know, he
(03:28):
was behaving much more sort of likea psychologist, you know, really kind
of you know, arn't therapy talktherapy, holistic approach to therapy, and
you know, the psychiatric and psychologistcommunity we're a little like, hey man,
We've taken a lot of care andtime to differentiate the two. You
know, you can't just conflate thetwo on TV and be like, I'm
an everything ist. So David Showing, our showrunner, was like, well,
(03:52):
we obviously we don't want to limityour story pool, so we're going
to make you Chair of Behavioral Studies, and that became the official title of
Iggy. So he kind of isn'teverything ist. So I guess the gist
of Iggy is that he's a veryvery incredibly passionate psychologist and psychiatrist, mostly
for children, and kind of hefits into that group of Mavericks because he'll
(04:15):
kind of color outside the lines oftenand often at his own peril. He's
also an incredibly flawed human being,which I love playing. I guess that
would be a good segue into wherethe disordered eating and eating disorder and body
dysmorphia storyline came from Yeah, Imean I know from what we heard was
we had pitched and brought you know, this storyline in about obesity an interesting
(04:41):
enough, it hadn't been covered OBChadn't been covered I don't think in new
Ams term. Really no, no, not at all when you saw the
script or you know, how didit the storyline for the woman who wanted
the skin removal? You mean yeah, that so there had already been Will
you give us a little snapshot ofthat storyline? Yeah? Sure. So
there was a woman who had hadlost a lot of weight and I believe
(05:02):
it had gastric bypass surgery, butnobody had told her, you know,
or informed her sufficiently that she wasgoing to have a lot of excess skin,
which is what happens for a lotof people. And not only was
it uncomfortable and embarrassing for her,she was getting lesions and sores all over
her body, which is also true, and that happens to a lot of
patients and they're not covered medically orthey don't have the insurance coverage to get
(05:26):
the skin removable surgery. So youknow, a lot of people have to
live with this incredibly uncomfortable and potentiallylife threatening byproduct of losing all this weight,
which is what they've been told todo. You know, this is
how you get to be happy,and then you're saddled with this whole new
problem that medical healthcare providers don't theydon't consider coverable, you know, and
(05:46):
you like that as a storyline youwere able to which often happens on New
Amsterdam. You think outside the boxwhere we had to diagnose her with some
melanoma, some skin cancer so thatshe could have the skin areas removed.
And it was like it wasn't quitelying. It was Maverick doctoring like we
said, but there was some somesketchy looking moles and things, and so
(06:11):
Freema who plays doctor Sharp and Icame up with a plan that if we
could convince her HMO that she neededto have skin mouble because of cancer,
it would be covered, but notfor the reason she was actually in there
for. So when you saw thisepisode, was it meaningful to you to
touch a chord? Yeah? Youknow, any storyline, any representation about
(06:32):
weight loss or obesity that I've seenbefore, and anything we had touched on
which I'll go back and talk aboutthe original trigger for my kind of storyline.
It always hits me in a veryuncomfortable spot. I'd never really seen
any like care taken, you know, to tell this story or to tell
(06:53):
overall stories about sort of physical transformationsand not only the physical sort of pain,
but the mental toll that it takeson people. And and that storyline
was really interesting too, because thiswoman was like she was being torn apart
emotionally after doing something that she thoughtwas going to be the cure, you
know. And I think that thatsort of triggered something for me. This
(07:15):
idea that we can't be happy functioningmembers of society of for obese is bullshit
and it's misinformation. And I understandthat there are health issues, but the
whole BMI scale, everything that hasbeen sort of, i think, sort
of given to us, handed tous as these very sort of catch all
reasons that being overweight is bad andit's bad for your health. Isn't actually
(07:40):
that true. Yes, there arehealth and safety risks, you know,
if you get to a certain levelof obesity. But anyway, it just
always triggers me because I feel likeno one ever really talks about that.
No one talks about that, likewhat if you are a happy, healthy,
overweight person, but you still getthe same stigma. There's still the
same stigma. So it triggered mein that regard where she was talking about
(08:03):
being stared at more now that shehad lost the weight, but it was
very subtle. They wrote in therethat earlier she had become accustomed to the
way to the certain type of stairs, and that really hit me. She's
like, yeah, because people dopeople feel like it's still okay to judge
and look and like publicly sort ofheckel overweight people and it's the only it's
(08:26):
like the only acceptable I say acceptablevery loosely, but it's like the only
acceptable thing I think that people stillfeel okay to openly judge and throw very
offensive words around and hurtful words aroundwithout thinking about it. It's the last
of the stigmatized diseases. Yeah,it seems, you know, like we
(08:46):
could never I was interesting. Iwas watching some pretty contemporary shows the other
night from probably five seven years ago, and they don't hold up. No,
I know, isn't it. It'sso it's not even a cancel culture
thing. It's just a cringe thingthat. Yeah, and it's good because
(09:07):
we is human being should be evolvingand should be working better. But obesity,
there's the health factor. Two,there's no other disease. We actually
just did a PSA. I'll saidit. You haven't seen it with talking
about if someone had epilepsy, youwouldn't say, oh, you know,
just smile more, it'll be better. Or if someone broke their arm,
(09:31):
you wouldn't say, don't go tothe doctor, you're fine. Yeah,
Or you wouldn't say, well,you shouldn't be engaging in physical activity.
No, it's your fault, right, Just to take that one step further.
That's how I feel about mental healthas well, Like when did it
become like separate from health? Mentalhealth and health. I don't know where
the separation. Like you wouldn't judgesomeone or think that they were weak if
(09:54):
they had a degenerative heart disease,right, or they have type two diabetes.
Yeah, with obesity, you lookat it. You know, the
way we as humans seem to processit is the person's sloppy making bad decisions
and we know that. Yeah,we don't make that judgment on any other
even you know, if you lookat alcoholism or mental illness or like you
(10:16):
know which by the way, Ihave both you are a renaissance man.
But my friend of mine, WillSasso, had a really interesting interview we've
both been on Ethan Sue Please podcastAmerican Glutton. Yeah, he's gone through
a huge physical transformation and have looseextra skin and all that. And Will
Sasso said on there at one pointhe's like, very sarcastically, He's like,
(10:37):
oh, yeah, because everybody who'soverweight she wants that. It's like
there's some belief that like, yeah, you chose it. You're like,
yeah, you pig, you wantto be fat, You're sad, You've
chosen to do this thing. Soyou know, you made your bed,
lion it. And it's like,can you say that about any other No,
that's what I'm saying. You don'tlook at someone and say you chose
(10:58):
to have that disease. Yeah,you know, but it still isn't regarded
as being in the same category forsome reason as a disease you know,
growing up, what was it?Like, Well, okay, so let
me walk it back a sec.So the original sort of at the beginning
of the pulling at the corner ofthe sticker for me on this show was
(11:20):
that they had written in this verysort of backburner quirky eating storyline with Iggy,
where he would be like eating allthese like walking around with a bag
of carrots and the pilot a bagof crudete and eating that, and then
you know, the next episode he'dbe in the break room shoveling gummy worms
in his mouth kind of by himself, you know, and it was sort
(11:41):
of like funny, like, oh, he's really just stress eating, and
then it started to become more andmore. Obviously that was like a thing
they would show Iggy like after havinglike a really you know, stressful day,
he'd be like shoveling chocolate in hismouth or whatever. And I just
kind of, like I said toDavid Foster he was on set one day,
I kind of David is just soeveryone. He's a writer, executive
(12:01):
producer and is actually a doctor aswell. He noticed my sort of agitation,
I guess you could say, andmy knee jerk reaction a lot of
that stuff was like, fuck off, don't give him a quirky, disordered
eating storyline and then not give itany attention. I have disordered eating,
and I have body dysmorphia, andI have struggled since I was very young,
(12:24):
since I was about ten years old, eight nine, ten years old,
and when it began, I mean, that's a huge it's a huge
long talk. But eating for meis not something that I'm like, I'm
willing to just kind of like pokeat, you know. And I wasn't
angry at it because most people don'teven realize that that's a thing. So
I said something and I just saidlike, well, if you're gonna do
this, can we do it?Like has anybody ever? Is there room
(12:46):
here to add that Iggy might havedisordered eating as like a real storyline And
Foster was like, well, yeah, I think probably, you know,
And he was the reason why Iasked me. And then Sean Cassidy,
one of our writers in producers aswell, called me and was like,
hey, man, would you tellme your story like I don't, I
don't know your story with you know, what you've struggled with with your body
(13:07):
and with eating it. And Itold him that. It was a long
conversation and you know, he tookit all down, and then they asked
me point blank if they could usemy story for a storyline for Iggy and
I was like yeah, And itinvolved a lot of shit. It was
like my dad really body shaming meas a kid, and kids body shaming
me, and my dad putting meon crash diets and taking like shirtless photos
(13:28):
of me and like making you know, all kinds of things, and then
it all sort of culminated in metrying to commit suicide when I was like
twelve thirteen. So you were gettingthis shame and blame stuff. Yeah,
And my dad was like, also, you know, he got bad information
to his mom, was Mike.Grandma was a nightmare him of being and
his father was a nightmare. SoI don't really blame my dad. I
(13:50):
did. I don't anymore. Theshow has been very cathartic for me.
But anyway, so I talked tothem about it and then I gave them
permission to use it. And thenlow and behold, the script came down
the pike and I I was onset and I read it and it's really
weird. Man. You don't realizehow fucked up your story is until you
see it from a different perspective.There was written on the page coming out
(14:13):
of Iggy's mouth, and I waslike, oh, that sounds so bad,
you know. I was like,I was like embarrassed, and I
kind of I got like really shaky, and I got really emotional, and
I threw the script down and Iwent immediately to write an email to David
Schulner, but instead, first Italked to Janet Montgomery, who is one
of my closest friends on the cast, who plays doctor Bloom, and I
(14:33):
just was like, well, I'mterrified. Man. She was like,
then you have to do it.You have to do this. You gave
him this story for a reason,and like this show is super popular,
and like if you tell this story, think about all the good that could
come from this, and it mightbe really good for you, and you
have to do it. And Iwas like, you're right, You're right.
So we did it. We shotit and it was really crazy and
(14:54):
hard and I literally was like talkingto my dad for a lot of those
takes and blah blah blah. Anyway, shot it. It was really insane.
My mom was actually visiting, shewas in town while we were show,
really and she like read the scriptthat I accidentally left out on the
table. You know, you couldprobably talk freud about that one, but
it was a huge opportunity for mymom and I'd have a big breakthrough conversation.
(15:16):
I ended up having a big breakthroughconversation with my dad about all kinds
of things, who I was kindof a strange with for quite a while.
And then the reaction from fans,like after it came out was incredible.
Men, oh man, the men. Well it like, tell me
about some of the fans because thisis this untold story that you guys,
yeah broke. I mean, soI knew shooting it that. I was
(15:41):
like, I've never seen this.I've never seen this candidly spoken about,
you know, about a man alsoa man who looks like me, a
man who also, by the way, has spent most of my career playing
like the funny fat guy for lackof a better term. It was what
I got called the schlub. Youknow, all that stuff that was my
bread and butter, and you burya lot of shit when it's your paycheck,
you know. So I had neverseen this. And some of the
(16:04):
first responses I got was when Davidand I went to Atlanta to do this,
Like we were talking about the showat SCAD for this like TV festival
they have there, and David andI went and did like a panel about
this really and there was like justlike college kids, men my age,
older men getting up approaching us,crying, telling me. They're like,
(16:27):
oh my god, I've never seenanybody like you know, guys who you
would That's the thing. The problemis that you hear this phrase a lot.
I never would have guessed, Like, guys, you never would guess.
It's like, yeah, you neverguess because it's like that's not even
a guess, that is an option. You know, we don't talk about
it, so it's just these guys. But then when I really knew it
(16:48):
was really impactful was when like friendsof mine, family members and friends of
mine who were like you know,seemingly unaffected their entire lives about things just
started like confessing to me about howmuch pain they carried around and how amazing
it was to see that representation,not just because it was me, because
that's one thing, but for themto see it period. And then the
conversations we had afterwards, and theconversations I've been having ever since, like
(17:12):
even this one. You know,this is like two years ago, and
it's still something that I think people. I don't know if anybody else has
even covered it. I think wemight be the only one right now,
And it's just the impact. Ididn't know. I didn't know how impactful
it was going to be. Itjust felt very personal and challenging, and
I was like doing something brave forme. But I realized later, I
(17:33):
was like, oh man, thisis like this is one of those moments.
This is when pop culture can actuallyhave like an effect on hopefully an
effect on the future. You know. Yeah, it's crazy. This is
all fertile ground for change. Yeah. And I'm the first person to say,
yes, the great part about youknow, show business and the entertainment
(17:55):
industry is that you have a superpower. Every week you're speaking to millions and
influencing millions and millions of people.Yeah, And I think, you know,
it's so exciting what you're doing.So now you have this whole storyline
around your character. Where do yousee the future of doctor Iggy? Yeah,
(18:17):
Driggy as I like to call him. I'd like to say one more
thing about the show without being tooyou know, aggrandizing, but like,
I think the thing that's cool aboutthe show is that it does that all
over the place. I'm not theonly example of that. There's like inclusivity.
I've never like I've never seen before, so I love the show for
that. But I think the futureof doctor Iggy is like really up in
(18:40):
the air right now. He's kindof like we've pushed the envelope so far
with how flawed he is that Ithink some people are like, can he
really is he certified? Like canhe be a therapist? He might just
need more therapy than but why Iwould never go see a therapist that didn't
need therapy, That's my opinion.So I think they've put him through the
ringer with a few things like tryingto adopt a kid without telling his husband.
(19:02):
He's now like hired this new assistant, this hot Australian guy that he's
kind of like flirting with, butit's like, what are you doing,
buddy. They had him try tostop seeing patience, and you know he's
been forced back into that and likeso there's a lot of them pushing I
guess the sort of the tenacity ofthis character, like how much can he
come back from? What I wouldlike to see is like I really want
(19:26):
to really want to see any funlike like hit his stride at this point,
I'm like, I want I wantto see him get his Mojo back,
man. I want to see himlike really feeling himself and like that
burning from the inside out with likeconfidence and you know, feeling himself.
But the cool thing about this showis like this season was called like Finding
Your Joy, And the thing aboutfinding joy is like, it's not joyful.
(19:47):
It's not joyful finding your joy.That shit's hard, man, it's
bumpy. So I like it.I like playing the really bumpy road to
joy and who knows how long itis. I mean, you chase the
best profession to bumpy road to enjoythe entertainment, to be an actor.
So you grew up in Canada,right, Yeah? Yeah, I grew
up in different parts of Canada.Yeah you were on the lamb in Canada.
(20:10):
Yeah. I was hiding out.I was coiled. I think I
was lying in Wait. Yeah,I grew up in Brampton, Ontario,
and then I moved from there toVancouver, like a suburb of Vancouver called
Maple Ridge when I was thirteen.When did you come stateside? When?
Or why? Why? Well?Why? Yeah? That is a good
question, counity Robin. If thisis the place, man, I actually
(20:33):
just got my citizenship like a monthago. Really, so wait, so
that's one for our team. That'samazing. Yeah, you guys, wait,
you got me. Canada suffered aterrible blow losing me. I'll tell
you that. I'll take you.I moved here when I was twenty.
I moved to la I had,you know, I'd done like Vancouver was
(20:56):
like a hotbed of sci fi televisionactivity, X Files and First Wave and
Millennium and everything shot Vancouver and Icut my chops just doing like guest stars
on all these shows. And thenI did this show called Breaker High with
Ryan Gosling and I where we werekids who went to school on a cruise
ship. Super super cutting edge aswell, very inclusive, the stupidest show
(21:21):
of all time, but it wasit was fun and it like sort of
blew up. And then I hitmy ceiling in Canada, you know,
like that's that was like the heightof Canadian fame for me. I was
like getting chased around malls and stuff, and then I kind of got burnt
out. I didn't think I wantedto act anymore. I started looking for
other things to do. No onewanted to hire me. I was overexposed
in Canada, and then I gotthis audition for a pilot on the WB
(21:44):
with Nicky Cox and she was kindof hot shit at the time, and
I came down. I flew downto LA and tested with her and I
didn't get it. But while Iwas there, we did a screen test
together for her show called The NickyCock Show. I think it was called
Nikki. And then I got tomake out with Keycocks for a minute in
an audition, and then I didn'tget the part. I found out like
then and there, like I leftand I got the phone call you can
(22:04):
get it. But back in theday, like if you were on a
lot testing sometimes this crazy thing wouldhappen where they'd be like, oh,
Tyler Leban is on the lot rightnow, do you want him to come
over and read for this other thing? And I went and read for this
other thing called dead Last that DeepenSentas and Steve Pink and Patrick O'Neill wrote.
They're the guys who wrote like highfidelity and gross point blank and part
(22:26):
of the actor's gang. And Iwent over and met with them in like
this very casual sort of setting,and within like an hour they were like,
we want you to test for that. And I came back the next
morning and tested before and booked it, and they shot the pilot in Vancouver,
and then the show got picked upand moved to LA which is never
the way it happens. It's usuallylike they shoot the pilot and then they
let's go shoot a cheaper in Canada. They wanted to shoot in LA,
(22:48):
and so the show got picked up. They got me a visa, and
I moved to LA and then Ijust never looked back. I just kept
getting those guys signed me to abunch of development deals, and I kept
developing shows with them in different networks, and those guys a lot. And
you've been consistently working. I waslooking at your Wikipedia pages and pages,
and you've done some really interesting You'vedone a lot of voiceover. Yeah.
(23:12):
Yeah, you're a major voice inUltron Vultron. Yeah, I mean,
listen to this tool I have listen. Yeah, you are a tool.
I mean yeah, you can't haveone without the other. It takes a
real tool to have this voice,and you are a real tool. I
did, I did, I did. Voltron Vultron is a again a very
(23:34):
realistic show, hyper realistic show aboutthese lions that are also robots that also
joined together to form a bigger robotcalled Vultron who is the defender of the
galaxy and the universe, all basedon true facts, true events, and
I have been played the left legof the giant robot named Hunk. He's
(23:55):
the Yellow Lion. And as acartoon from the eighties, like when I
was a kid, it was oneof the earliest examples I can think of
of like really bad anime making itsway to the continental United States in Canada,
and it was like, this iswhat they would do. They would
take like bits from all the differentepisodes and just mash it together and then
dub it over. So it nevermade any sense. But man as a
(24:18):
kid, like lyon Robots in Space, forget it? I mean, is
it? So? I love Vultron. And when I heard they were making
Vultron a reboot on Netflix with DreamWorks, I was like, can I can
I get in there? And they'relike, yeah, I've done some voiceworking
out a ton and they were like, yeah, you can read for Hunk
and he's like he's like a seventeenyear old boy. And I was like,
oh, yeah, I can dothat. And I went in there
(24:40):
and read and I got it.But it was like I was put on
probation. Netflix and DreamWorks was like, yeah, we're gonna let him do
three episodes and see if he canreally like get younger. Can you sound
younger? So I had to workon like how to get so wait,
so the name of the character ishunk. Hunk. Yeah, so what's
your hunk? Can you still doyour hunk voice? Can I hear a
little bit of the young tool?So here's the thing. I had a
(25:03):
different voice. I've had vocal surgerysince then. I used to sound like
this when I talked all the time. So to like sound younger for me,
I just had to like really comeup, you know. And a
lot of it was like really justbeing super enthusiastic about everything. All guys
come on, you know. Andhe was like really like I don't know,
that's the best I can do rightnow. But it was like cute.
(25:25):
It's I mean, I mean thatthat was really cute. He was
like, he's like the really enthusiastic. I love that. He was a
pilot, but he got motion sickness, so it was always like, guys,
I'm gonna throw up. Oh,guys, I'm gonna throw up wrong,
And you'd like throw up into likethe head of the lion multiple times.
So there's a lot of fun hadand I love that cast, which
included Stephen Yuan Now Academy Award nomineeyou know name nominated actors Stephen Young and
(25:49):
Bex Taylor Claus and Josh Keaton andKimberly Brooks and A. J. Lacascio
and Rhese Darby and all these people. That was just like and Jeremy Shada
was really great cast of people whowere like way more experienced than me with
voiceover, and I went in thereand they just like schooled me. It
was fun. How does one dovoiceover? So are you there with the
(26:11):
other characters? Are you doing yourthing yourself? Common question? It's a
mixture, like when I did likea Monster's University for Pixar, and I've
done like, you know, wordGirl, and I've done some like cartoons,
And it depends if you were like, schedule is a little bit difficult
to work out oftentimes when we weredoing Vultron, I was also shooting my
(26:32):
show Deadbeat on Hulu, and I, you know, I was off doing
other things in whatever city I wasin. They would just hook up a
studio for me to go in anddo my part. But when I was
in La, yeah, we wereall oftentimes we were all in a room
together, and that ship got crazywhen there was like six of us in
there, goofing off and trying tomake up, and it's a pretty funny
(26:52):
show. It was Mayhem and ourdirector Andrea Romano, who's like a legend
in the voiceover industry, turned intolike our babysitter. She would just like,
guys, guys, you know,we were just like a bunch of
unruly kids. So I think eventuallythey started not bringing us in together.
I think they were like, webetter separating the class. What about Monsters
(27:14):
University? Tell me about that.That must have been fun, What a
crazy experience. So I was justsitting in my living room one afternoon in
Vancouver and I got a phone callfrom agent and he was like, Hey,
can you fly to San Francisco thisafternoon? And I was like,
I yes, I'm available, LikeI don't what do you mean? He
(27:37):
was like, yeah, Pixar wantsto fly you to Emeryville, load to
San Francisco, and then drive youto Emeryville to the Pixar their main headquarters.
Oh my god, so yes,I got on a plane. They
didn't tell me any details of whatI was doing. I just knew that
I was going to go and meetCorey Ray and Dance Scanlon who directed and
(28:00):
produced, and then they went onto do that new one with Chris Pratt
and Tom Holland called Brothers. Ithink. Anyway, I was really excited.
I didn't have any details, nolines, nothing to look at.
They just said they really love youfor the part. And so I got
there and I went into the studio. It's like it's like going into Willy
Wonka's chocolate factory if you like cartoonsPixar. It's just like everywhere you looked
(28:22):
was like oh oh oh, ohmy god. There's Woody and there's you
know. And they have like likethe craziest like gift shop. And they
took me there right away and liketake anything you want. What do you
want? I'm like to do anaudition. They're like, yeah, take
whatever you want. And so Igrabbed some stuff from my kids and and
they like walked me around and tookme into a like a recording booth and
(28:45):
he showed me like a little previz of the movie, like just like
a very crude cut of some stuffand they're like, Okay, this is
your character, Brock. And mycharacter comes up and it's already voiced.
It's this voice and the character goinglike and it was really funny, and
I was like oh, and itsounded really familiar. I was like,
who is that? Like why don'tyou just use that guy? And they're
(29:06):
like, that's you. We justtook snippets from other performances and piece the
other some dialogue and just to putit in as a previous And I was
like, oh, well, Iguess I really better not fuck this up
now, like you've already used myvoice. If I don't get the part,
that's a little weird. Wow,that is fascinating. Yeah, And
so I went into the audition withthat mind like kind of being like what
(29:29):
oh man, So like I'm theprototype, but if I'm auditioning for it,
and if I blow it, that'sreally weird. Right, we're avatar,
we get the role, but notyou? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
man, that's the slippery slope.So I went into the booth and
I started recording and Dan was like, so everything this guy says is like
screamed. He's the most yelly topof his lungs enthusiastic character, and like
(29:53):
I said, I had this.I had this different rasp of your voice
at the time, and he waslike, just go for it, man,
and we started recording and they're laughing, and it's like an hour,
two hours, three hours, fourhours, five hours. I'm there and
we're just doing this. We're justgoing and going and going, and I
start realizing, like halfway through,I'm like, this is the gig.
(30:14):
I'm doing it, and if theyput it into the movie and it sucks,
they'll just do this again with anotheractor. They'll bring a guy in
and be like, we have apre visit of your voice. And so
I was like, oh, thispicks us so genius. Man. They're
just like, this is the laststage in making these films. They don't
they've done everything else. They justwant someone to come in and get it
right. So we did it andDan walked me out, and by that
point I was like, yeah,but this was really fun. Man.
(30:36):
He was like, yeah, gorest your voice, and we're gonna keep
you here for one more night.We might need you again tomorrow. I
was like okay, And then Igot a new car. I was driving
to the airport to the hotel andthey called and they said, actually,
you're good, you can go.We got everything we needed and I called
my age in the next day.I was like, so did I get
the part? He was like,yeah, you did it. You're gonna
have a check probably in like youknow, a week. That's it.
They said they might need you forone more session, in which they did,
(30:57):
which was like a couple of weekslater, and I went into one
more session and then I was inMunster's University. Was it so your character
in Monsters University? It was apreppy what was that a bird? Yeah,
he's like he's like a like ahippogriff. He's like a hawk like
lion like. Yeah, he hadlike horns and it was kind of preppy
(31:18):
too. I remember that it waslike a liger. Yeah, he was
definitely. He was like a jock, like a big letterman jacket on.
And he was the vice president ofthe Greek Counsel in Aubrey. Plaza was
the president, and we did itto get We never met except for the
never met. You just did yourthing. Yeah. The whole bunch of
people was like Charlie Day and Seanfrom a Will and Grace, Sean Oh,
(31:42):
Sean Hayes, Sean Hayes, thankyou. Sean Hayes who I met
at the premiere, whom sat rightby him. He was lovely and yeah,
it was a weird process, youknow, like I showed up with
my now ex wife but wife atthe time to the premiere and we were
just like, let's go meet allthese crazy talented people that we love.
Yeah, it was neat. Anddidn't you do something on sunny in Philadelphia?
(32:02):
It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, those guys
are my buddies. Like Glenn Howardsonand I are really close. Glenn guests
start on a series of Mind onABC in like two thousand and four called
That was then he had not blownup yet, as they say, and
we just stayed in touch. Andanyway, I'd always been like man in
love to be on Sonny and hewas just like, we just don't do
(32:23):
guest stars, you know, likethey have very very rarely have guest stars.
It was always about the game.They have like some recurring smaller parts,
but they were like trying to findsomething for me. And then finally
Glenn was like, we have thisone dumb small part, but like me
and Charlie and I know Charlie andRob pretty well too, well, not
Charlie but Rob. And they werelike, do you want to just come
and do like a fun day AndTodd Bierman was directing, who was a
(32:44):
buddy of mine who directed a bunchof my show on Hulu, Deadbeat,
And I just came on and justgot to like be a bully to those
guys on this one day and itwas really fun. There's nothing better than
bully for a day. Yeah,getting paid for it. Yeah. I
got to get in Rob mcleanny's faceand be like you want to go,
buddy? And it was Rhett.Were you a fan of the show,
(33:05):
had you mean yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah major. They bring quirky
to a new level. Yeah,they bring quirky And you know, it's
funny for a show that was likealways towing the line right, Like,
I'm sure there are episodes you goback now and be like, oh,
I don't know if we can saythat they've always gotten away with everything and
now they've become like a beacon forinclusivity. Their show has become this juggernaut
(33:30):
of inclusivity. You know, withRob's character being gay, there's like trans
representation on the show. They leaveno stone left unturned. They're really like,
even though they're crass and crew,they're all about inclusivity and I love
that. I love that about thatshow. Now you're at one of the
regulars on this hit show. Yeah, how is episode of TV treating you?
(33:52):
Do you like the schedule? Imean, yeah, yeah, it's
good. You know, like I'vedone. This is like probably like my
I think it's my fourteenth TV series, which is kind of crazy to think
about. And I have never donefour seasons on the show. Deadbeat was
the longest, and that was threeseasons and those were really short seasons.
They were ten, thirteen, andthirteen. So I've never done twenty two
(34:13):
episode long term, like four seasonsof twenty two episodes of a show.
And I thought, oh man,what a slog. That's going to kill
me. It's like ten months outof the year. I'm in New York,
my family's in California, but likeit's such a big show. The
cast. I mean that, likeI probably worked four days in episode,
sometimes five, sometimes more, butusually i'd say like half the days I
(34:35):
have off, So I usually they'rekind of kind with the scheduling, and
I get to fly home when leavingon Friday to go see my kids for
four days. And it's not bad. I hear it. Like a lot
of my friends, I won't namethem here, but who have been on
long standing you know, running shows, especially procedurals, are just like dying.
They're just like, oh my god, it's my golden handcuffs, you
know, like you make sure youkeep yourself busy with other endeavors, you
(34:58):
know, like you're gonna be therefor a long I'm not finding it to
be that way. I find theshow really. I did come from comedy
and this is kind of like myforay into more dramatic work. I'm really
just trying to leach all the experientialreward I can out of this show,
you know, So I don't findit to be unchallenging or boring by any
means. I'm like, I'm lovingit. That's right. I was reading
(35:19):
and you had your roots in comedy. What's your opinion of our cancel culture
here in our great country. Yeah, you know, cancel culture is definitely
you know, Canada is not immuneto cancel culture. But I have a
lot of thoughts on cancel culture.I'm a forty three year old man,
white cis gender man. Okay,yablishing, as you can see as evidenced,
(35:45):
the term itself, cancel culture justkind of says it all right.
It's like, well, it's justeverything is expendable. I just don't agree.
I think it is good that wehave now started to be much more
comfortable to say what we don't wantto put up with anymore, what we
shouldn't put up with anymore, whatpeople are tired of being, you know,
(36:05):
living with and feeling underrepresented or overrepresentedor anything that. I think that
as in general, that people arefeeling uncomfortable and now we have a place
and a platform to say what wedon't like. I think that's good.
Ricky Gervais posted this thing a coupleof weeks ago, and it said like
when someone says like, we can'tjoke about anything anymore, He's like,
that's the most ridiculous thing I've everheard. You can joke about whatever the
(36:28):
fuck you want. Just know thatpeople are going to tell you whether they
don't like it or not, andthen you do what you want. That
information you can either carry on oryou can adjust. The choice is yours.
And I was like, yeah,that's really the gist of it.
Although at another level, people arejust getting canceled, right, It's not
just like certain you know, typesof people are getting their lives ruined by
(36:51):
cancel culture. And I've had acouple of friends who have been sort shoot
up in the cancel culture. Melee, I've already said five to ten things
that will offend somebody. I'm sureI have. Yeah, well, I
mean it. Also, you know, we talked about diversity and diverse casting
to your character is gay and you'renot. I don't identify as gay,
(37:12):
but I think you know, I'mlike, i'd say, I'm probably somewhere
in the queer territory. So didyou get any hassle? Well, no,
I mean so. And by theway, that's all fairly new.
These are things I'm coming to termswithin my life post divorce. At the
time, I was really nervous aboutit. I was like, oh shit,
you know, straight guy playing agay guy gay for wait? How
(37:32):
many wait? How many years ago? Is that? That was? In?
What years? Four years ago?There's twenty and eighteen, I think,
And at that point were we lookingat that yeah. I think the
whole idea of like I'd heard theterm gay for pay a few times and
any of that that's really that wasnot a good thing. I also know
that being accepted by the gay communityis make or break, or the LGBTQ
(37:53):
community is make or break for anyrepresentation on TV, and then you kind
of have to like past the guard, you know what I mean, you
have to get let in. SoI was very aware of doing it respectfully,
and I didn't know when I whenI got off of the role.
David Schulder didn't tell me anything aboutthat until we were starting to shoot the
pilot. He was like, whatwould you think about Iggy being gay?
(38:13):
And I was like, oh,yeah, that sounds great. Actually I'd
love to do that. But thenof course the rush of like, oh
fuck, what if that offensive people? And I wasn't sure if I should
do it or anyway. I thought. The one thing I said to David,
which we really agreed on right away, it was like, Okay,
if we're doing this, it's notthe thing. We're not hanging our hat
one. We're not going to hearpart of your fabric of who you are.
(38:37):
I guess it's just he's just agay guy. He's a happily married,
successful man who has four beautiful children, and he's gay. You know,
like it's a proud part of whohe is. But let's not do
like a eggy struggling because he doesn'tcome out at work storyline or his like
disapproving parents come in and you know, gay shame him or you know,
like none of that. We justwanted it to be. And that's when
(38:59):
David was like, well, wewon't even We're having going to mention it
until episode five, and it's goingto be the most casual drop. And
I remember it was coming. Itwas episode five and my character just very
casually says Max says like, hey, you want to do something. I
say, no, I've got dinnerplans with Martin tonight. You know,
I gotta go spend some time withthe husband or whatever. You know,
everything I even said husband, wejust said Martin was implied that I was
(39:20):
hanging out with my signorial name Martin. And I was just waiting. I
was waiting for like the Twitter backlash, for like people to be like what
But it was immediately accepted and applaudedfor the way that we did it.
And my uncle, who was agay man, immediately called me was like,
yeah he's gay, yes, youknow, like right on, man,
And I felt this swell of pride. I was like, I have
(39:43):
an opportunity. I always try tolook for the opportunity, Like I have
an opportunity to be an ally andrepresent in a way that is, like,
I think, the way that ismore honest and accurate to the way
we see the world. You know, it's not like it is on TV.
It's not these like and you know, he's like hammered over the heads
(40:04):
tropes. It's like there's just gaypeople, you know what I mean,
it's part of the fabric. Yes, it's interesting because that kind of leads
back to, you know, wecome full circle with obesity and the representation
of obesity in pop culture because itwas you know, it was the fat
joke. Yeah, that was pervasive, oh man, everywhere, everywhere,
(40:29):
everywhere, And it still is.You know, like people are maybe a
little more sensitive, but like wetalked about, it's still kind of people
are like, yeah, that one'sfine, you can still do that.
The amount of like fat jokes incomedy, the term fat fat jokes,
even the fact that that's like agenre. Fat jokes is like, that's
like a subgenre of comedy. We'rewatching like overweight comics tear themselves apart on
(40:52):
stage because that was the only materialthey felt like they could. Yeah,
I mean, we actually produced ashort film on comedy and obesity, and
one of the comedians that we profilesaid, I have to do the fat
jokes. If I don't, theaudience will be saying, well, does
he know he is? Because Iwant to just come out and say it,
(41:14):
because and the damage, the psychologicaltoll. Like comics, they're already
like the saddest people, Like weknow that, they're already the people that
are like they're just a old sadYeah, turned themselves a parliment, and
then you would watch these comics likejust literally demolish themselves on stage. It's
that, It's exactly that. It'sthey're getting out in front of it.
(41:35):
They're saying it before you are,and that's it. And I've done that
my whole life. And again,getting back to the storyline on New Amsterdam.
Are the writers on target are youfeeding into the storyline? Are you
commenting on it? Are you partof the development of it? Yeah,
I mean Like I said, theinitial sort of foray into it even being
(41:57):
like an actual storyline was because Icouldn't not say something. I'm not taking
all the credit. They had beenbaking something into the cake, and I
don't even know to what degree,but I know that when I mentioned,
like, can we really make somethingout of this, they were like,
what do you got? You know? So when I gave them my actual
story and they wrote it into thescript, I definitely felt like I had
some sort of involvement, more thanI've ever really had before as just an
(42:22):
actor on a show. You know, they let me in and yeah,
some of the stuff and some ofthe disordered eating and the rituals and the
things I was able to comment onand take things from my life and things
that I've done dieting or fat dietingor trying to lose weight that we've been
able to put into the show.And then again, the language I've used
to refer to myself and talk aboutmyself in the past that I try not
(42:44):
to do anymore, you know,the language I'm trying to undo from all
the information I've been given my wholelife is like that stuff, poignant and
powerful stuff. So We've definitely putsome of that in there. I've ad
lived quite a few things where it'sjust like my old really really detrimental language
that I used to talk about myself, not loving myself, not knowing my
(43:05):
worth, you know, all thatstuff. That's all come very organically as
a collaboration. But how do youfeel that it's your own personal story that
you're now acting. It's weird,like that reaction, the throwing the script
down and like seeing it in blackand white and being like, that's not
that's not what I said, That'snot my life. But then you realize,
(43:28):
like, well it is. It'sjust you tell that story to yourself.
You don't even tell it to yourselfanymore. It just is you,
you know what I mean. You'rejust like, it's just your life.
You just accept what your life isuntil you see it represented in some medium,
you know, like you see itwritten and then you're supposed to perform
it and it takes a whole newshape. And it's been really, like
I said, it's been really cathartic. I've actually done some of the most
(43:52):
healing I think I've ever done inmy life around body image, just from
the storyline on this show. Ieven went out and got tattoos. We
shot that season. I got tattoos, let's say, all the good and
all the bad on my biceps.And it was just about me finding unification
within myself and accepting my shadows andmy strength and my weakness is everything.
(44:13):
And like, really I've been ina lot of therapy and it, but
like this show has like really again, I don't want to be too self
aggrandizing, but like this show hasopened up doors for me internally that I
just don't know that I would havebeen in the position to open up before
this, you know, through likebeing able to act dramatically and find like
(44:35):
the truth in something other than representingit comedically has been like a gift because
comics do the same shit. It'sjust that it's more about misdirection. It's
more about manipulating what you see,whereas drama has allowed me to like lay
some stuff flat out on the tableand it just happens to be really personal
stuff. So I've really found likejust even acknowledging or talking about it as
(44:57):
like also, I mean, youare living happened to you? So given
that you know you had a prettyit sounds like somewhat turbulent childhood of downs,
and what would you say to yourtwelve year old self right now?
Yeah, I have done this exercisequite a bit. Oh well, I'm
try and tyler, No, no, no, no, I mean it's
(45:19):
a very poignant. What I meanis by myself, I've tried to be
very loving to my young me.You know, I would tell twelve year
old me that I am worthy oflove, that I am lovable as is.
I wish somehow I can impress upontwelve year old me that, like
what the scale says that day,does not erase or diminish my accomplishments,
(45:45):
you know, like somehow I letmy weight literally immediately take away all my
accomplishments, like everything else doesn't matterbecause I'm overweight. So I'd love to
tell twelve year old me that thatis just a line of absolute horseshit.
Yeah, but just that I'm worthyof love and that I'm lovable as is,
I think is a really important messageto twelve year old me. Thank
(46:07):
you, thank you. Everybody watchedNew Amsterdam ten o'clock on Tuesday nights,
and that's ten o'clock East coast andI guess West coast and you can do
all the travel math. Yeah,it's ten o'clock everywhere. Nine Central,
nine Central. It's always like that, that nine Central growing out, it's
like who are those people? Yeah, who are these Central lights? I
don't know who are after the comma. But thank you Tyler, and I'm
(46:30):
so glad to see you and yeahyou do or to getting together in the
human Yes, in person would begreat. And thank you so much for
having me on, Robin Tyler,thank you so much. That was a
lot, and thank you so muchfor sharing everyone. Please make sure to
(46:52):
come back next time when we welcomefrom Foxes The Resident Author TV writer.
I'm retired surgeon doctor Anthony Chinqui andone of the stars of The Resident Actor
managed dall see everyone. Then you'vebeen listening to On the Edge, a
podcast series from the Creative Coalition,hosted by Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk.
(47:16):
For more information on how you canprotect funding for the arts and harness the
power of the arts to promote socialgood, visit us at the Creative Coalition
dot org.
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