Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Hank Azaria

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

Neal Brennan interviews Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, The Artist, Mystery Men, The Birdcage & much more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. 00:00 Intro 1:35 Career 3:55 Apu 30:39 Sponsor: Ground News 33:03 Sponsor: Mando 35:17 Simpsons Characters He Voices 38:44 Perfectionism & Uptightness 42:32 Drugs, Addiction and Codependency 56:20 Matthew Perry 1:04:57Workaholism and Fame 1:19:19 Impressionist 1:35:38 Parenting 1:41:23 Trump Quotes As Simpsons Characters Thanks to our sponsors! Go to www.groundnews.com/neal for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through my link. Visit https://www.shopmando.com and use code NEAL for 20% off Get harder, longer-lasting erections with Ro Sparks: $15 off your first order of medication to get hard at http://www.ro.co/BLOCKS Visit https://www.betterhelp.com/NEAL for 10% off ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One, two, three. My guest today, pretty good credits here, guys. Quiz show. Oh, yeah. Heat. Who? The Birdcage. Are you afraid of my Guatemalan is?

Spam a lot. Brock Meyer. My wife Lucy, she was wearing a strap on, and she was plowing our neighbor Bob Greenwald, and folks I do mean right in the ass. Fastball misses just low, count goes full three and two. And most notably, the Simpsons. Oh, that's cool. Bring an outside beer into my bar.

was an animated show from the Tracy Oman. It's a spinoff from the Tracy Oman show. That's how much it happened a long time ago. No, no, no, no. It's fresh on a lot of people's memories. Hank Azari, everybody. He's also got a show called The Artist that's coming out on the network.

Well, I'm in it. Oh, you're in it. All right, great. Well, whatever. They'll go to Google them. Don't tell people how to live. Sorry. Let me help do what they're going to do.

many i have many uh questions for you that's like the point of all this yeah that's why you're here what what's happening over here with you what what are you what are you what are you all about at the moment just i find i find you wickedly talented and i've always got this i just feel like it's not enough for you you mean like i should have done more in my career no i don't know no i don't I just feel like you can do so much and you're called upon to do some of it. Is that about right? Yes, yes.

Yeah, I said to you earlier, you're like, yes, yeah, I think about, I've thought about this a lot because I'm self-obsessed actor like anybody else. So you could look at me as either the most overachieving voiceover actor in the history of the world or a moderately underachieving movie star or a lead actor, whatever, or even character actor.

But it's just the way things went. Some of it's luck. Some of it's my own temperament. Some of its... What's the temperament part? Well, the perfectionism and the sort of... There were times where I'd got in my own way. And there were times where I was so miserable doing it

that I sort of would have preferred not. There were times I was starting a movie, and I was like, I'd give anything to get out of this. Like, the pressure felt so much to me that I just wasn't cut out for it. and I actually would like one of my favorite shows is the honeymooners

you know Gleason and Carney and there's an episode where Ed's playing the piano because Ralph is learning songs for the he's going on to the quiz show for popular music and he and Alice start arguing

over Ed playing and Norton finally goes why oh why was I blessed with this musical talent and sometimes I felt that way about my own career like I wish I wasn't good enough to be in this

movie because the pressure of it is really hard that's very funny by the way i worked through all that and now i'm happy where i'm at you did i did i took a lot of therapy and program and sorting myself out and then i found a kind of happiness in my work and i'm grateful like for any of it that's sort of where i ended up any any any any any any job any is ever you said you're happy with any i'm happy that i do what i do and i should get to do it and uh but But it wasn't always the case. No, I was very fraught at times, and that's part of what I... It seemed fraught.

That's what I was picking up on. Some bad Hollywood luck, you know, you got to get lucky. But it was also my own fraughtness that got in my way. Your first block, which for a podcaster is a fantastic block. What did I say? Apu. Oh, yeah. He's the voice of Apu, guys.

Do you think I am moved by your sub-story? But he's not Indian. People didn't like it. They liked it for 25 years. They didn't say anything about it. They didn't say anything. Yeah. And then Harri Kanabulo made a documentary, among other people,

sort of opposing you playing Apu. I would have talked to us. I would assume it was real uncomfortable. Oh, it was, yes. I write and now have created one-man show a lot about this, which I haven't done yet, but it'll be out eventually. Soon, hope. Yeah, it was weird.

It was, you know, 25 years, I had never really heard a peep about anybody having a problem with this character or me doing it. And then I heard about it. Apoo on the Simpsons. Apu on the Simpsons. Then I heard a big flood of it. Oh, it's Quaky Mart. I mean, thank you. Come again.

Stereotypical over-the-top Indian accent. Yes, I am a citizen. Now, which way to the welfare office? I had this dilemma, personal and professional. Well, do I keep doing this voice or not? It got traction this, this criticism. It wasn't going away. It was one of the first waves of what society would call, you know, wokeism or cancer culture, whatever you want to.

It was actually predated cancel culture. 2014, what was it? Yeah, around then was when hurry started talking about it. White lens of this is what, like, Indian people are like. And so I was sort of one of the test bunnies for this kind of thing. and was very baffled by it and upset by it and didn't understand it. But I, because at this point, I was a sober guy and had gone through a lot of programmatic recovery in my life, I approached it similarly, which is, well, any crisis in my life, anything, anything that's upsetting to me,

I'm going to approach programmatically. It means I share with people and I try to respond and not react. react and understand that I'm going to have a lot of feelings, but I probably shouldn't speak. Can you explain to people the difference between a response and a reaction? Because I'm not sure I always know the difference. Reaction is your immediate impulse, how you feel, you know, like, I don't like that question. Like, you know, whatever. We've seen it on interviews a lot.

We would talk. Next question. That would be a reaction, as opposed to. A response might be, I'm not sure. I know how to answer that right now. May I think about it? Uh-huh. With this one, it was years.

I was like, I probably, what I got trained to do was, for my own mental health and other people's safe, was look at my part first. Mm-hmm. What might I be missing here? Because it usually is something, especially if something's really upsetting me, especially if it comes in the form of criticism, private or public. Yeah. It's almost, you're of the mind that it always has some merit. It might. I don't know.

Or they assume, be open to the idea that it may have some merit. It might. I'll know if it's completely groundless. I'll know, but it takes some sorting out first, and I can't figure that out when I'm all freaked out. So that's how you approach things in. What was the, okay, you hear that you're playing the part for 25 years. He's in Apu's in not every episode of The Simpsons, but many.

Yeah. Probably eight a year. Yeah, and he had, yeah. Maybe like a couple of lines Here more, but then he got featured after a while. He was a big part of why the show was successful. Yeah. Then you start to hear that it's wrong

for a non-Indian person to play an Indian character. And also some of the tropes of the character as well, no matter who is playing it. Yes. Can I defend the Zimpton's first? As a white person. Yes. In the 80s and 90s,

literally the only interaction you would have with Southeast Asians was like seven there were just a few places where you just because of like immigration job like just certain the way society was set up we didn't know any better would be my would be sure would be my defense of all white people which got far better from me but it was like we didn't think it's It was, I never thought it was fucked up watching it. I never thought like, oh, these stupid Indian and whatever. So I would assume you were in that area. Absolutely. It was a blind spot. But that was part of, well, so, wait, so getting, eventually I got to what I kind of learned, or did learn. But, you know, you can do one of a few things, at least in my position, when faced with that kind of criticism.

You can sort of do some kind of BS public apology and say, sorry, and then go right back to whatever you want to do. You can double down on the opposite, which I've noticed a lot of comedians have done. Fuck you, I'm leaning into, you know, you bunch of woke nuts. How do you like this?

Snowflakes, yeah. Yeah, you can lean into that. Neither of those seem to me. You can do the listening tour. I'm going to be spending. I did that for real. I didn't do a public show of that. I was like, here's what I was like,

I don't really know the answer to this question. I don't know whether I should stop doing this voice or not. Yeah. I really don't. On the one hand... Yeah, because you could also make the case that it was a, it was positive Indian. It's like they could have no Indians on the show.

You know, there's... Well, the same thing that was great about it was the problem with it, which was the old, pretty much for 20 years or so, the only Indian character you saw on TV or in America pop culture. Yeah. But by the same token, that made it carry

such weight that anything that was diminishing or off about it or kind of from the blind spot that we all lived we're products of in the late 80s then that just stuck and lived you know the show is going into its 37th season if even by the time hurry was criticizing it in 2014 or whatever it was 25 years old yeah no show lasts that long no it should have been a character he was referring to as part of the past. You know, like, this show was canceled five years ago, and that character was great, but it was also FDOP. Yeah, yeah.

But it was still, it was a living relic kind of. So it got criticized in real time. And I didn't know the end, and the one hand, I didn't want to just kow to woke, a PC, whatever we called it at the time. On the other hand, I didn't want to continue a harm if, in fact, it was. I didn't know.

Yeah. And then I started realizing that, not knowing is itself a problem. Like, I never thought about this. Yeah. I like, I never thought about it. And so I did a for real listening tour. I started asking people going to seminars,

going to, like, people's institute. What is racism in America, as far as you guys? I had never heard the 1619 version of American history. I only knew the 1776 musical version pretty much. So I had to get educated in all that. And then I kind of fell down that rabbit hole for real. I was like, well, what actually is all this? Forget about Apu.

Yeah. Like, I don't know all this stuff. Yeah. And after a few years of that. A few years. Years? The character, we all froze at The Simpsons. We didn't know what to do.

We were, like, freaked out. Yeah. Everybody felt the same. We don't want to do harm if we're doing it. We don't know if it is a harm. Yeah, it's like, or the option is like, okay, we can cut the character. I'm of this exact same way where it's like,

is it harmful? Is no character? better than this character? Do we do a thing that's... We didn't know. Yeah. So the character froze. It would appear, but never say anything.

Character hasn't uttered a word in nine years? Still? Yeah. Still to this day. Did they do a joke about it? Like he had a throat problem or... All that has been suggested, talked about, written, whole episodes were pitt,

like nothing ever passed muster. Yeah. we all decided to just leave bad enough alone and it's like we all kind of did our best with that and where it all ended up was animation in general not just the simpsons sort of not sort of pretty much if a character is of color that person voices it and there's not guys like me anymore will be utility ethnic guy yeah on your show it gets the work gets spread around i see it as like smoking like Like, I was, not, I wasn't an adult, but like, we didn't know any better. Exactly.

And I'm sure you heard from a lot of people that were like proud of a poop in the south of these Asians that were proud of a pooh. So it's like. Yeah, that might even be the majority of, I really looked into this. I know. It goes about a third of third. About half the people couldn't care less. I don't know what up who is.

Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, is he? Yeah. I'd say another 25% don't like it. are upset by it another 25% really love it and that's about the way it somebody even did a study on that i'm like those are real kind of real numbers yeah because we all started looking into this because i'm sure i'm sure you felt like a piece of shit right you must be like i'm pretty bad

i'm a race i'm a fit just brand me i'm a racist and i didn't know it or whatever yeah so to the extent though that that was true in the fact that i didn't when you and i both know fisher stevens is a real racist because he played in short circuit yeah bimbo i mean you know for i remember the movie i did mystery men with ben storer who were talking about earlier well i'm the blue balsh the director really suggested that i play that in brownface and indian accent and i didn't say no because i anticipated apu difficulties i was like nah i just don't think that's going to be the funniest thing or the best thing we could do here but so the character was was was my homage to peter sellers from the party engine grip

really crushed my old Indian hand. Which wasn't around. And I'm actually imitating. I'm not even imitating an Indian person authentically. I'm imitating Peter Sellers over the top voice from the party. Right. So when Hurricane de Balo made

the joke that I sounded like a white guy imitating another white guy trying to make fun of his dad, he was spot on. That was actually correct. Yeah. And by the way, your decision to do an homage to Peter Sellers, was like an artistically viable choice

when you made it. Came out of love. Look, I love Peter, so he's a hero of life. Of course. So, and to me, this is the example I give a lot of folks. So there's Dr. Strange love? Yeah, Dr. Strange love? I'm sorry, Mr. President.

There's Inspector Bluzev from the Pink Panther Movies. Does your dig that? Now, to me, there, and there's Horndi v. Bakshi from the party, the Indian voice. Now, to a kid, don't even say it. I'm not going to do it. No. You can play a clip of Cellers doing it in your life.

That's the whole episode. To me, as a 15-year-old in Queens, worshipping voice guys like that, and to him being the epitome to me, because he embodied these characters. He didn't just do a vocal send-up. What's the difference between a German guy and a French guy and an Indian guy?

Oppression of that particular country at the hands of western it's like it's algebra it gets into algebra it does but there is there is an answer and it's viable well in an American context which is different from other in this country

it's interesting right the accent so why can I do the voice of a Luigi Luigi's okay he's a stereotype the Luigi under the same sons how come I can do Claydice a slack jaw yokel that ain't compliment they treat the southern folks in the least. He's kind of dumb.

So, but I can't do Apu. And the simple answer is that in American context, those voices, while you might find them insulting, an Italian guy might go, I don't like that Luigi thing. Everybody who came to America had their turn to be hazed and low man on the totem pole. I'm Jewish. My relative, the old Jewish man on the Simpsons,

He's an imitation of my grandmother, one of my grandmothers. But once white folks in America drop the accent, eventually, we're kind of in. Yeah. You know, we're in. Not totally. You know, Jews, there's, I'm in with an asterisk as a Jew. There's some places that, I'm as white. It depends on the white person you ask how white I am.

But for the most part, I'm allowed to access. Folks with black and brown skin in this country, Hurricane de Bolo is from Queens where I'm from. He sounds as or more American than I do. He is smarter and funnier than I am. He is denied certain access. And there's teeth in the biases against him. It's beyond insulting for him.

It actually is a real block for him in our society. So that's the difference. I never was aware of that. And the fact that more than anything else that I never thought about it, was the problem for me and never considered it in my comedy and my work in any part of life one of the issues is it's you could watch this and go it's two men defend white men jewed whatever defending white supremacy i'm just like or were we're two we believe decent

people trying to parse comedy in a and from a fairly informed position and i've done slavery sketches and Holocaust. It's like I've done jokes about everything and I don't, I, the, I, I've come around to resenting the grad schoolification of everything in America, of everything's under the grad school microscope of like, and that the semiotics and the similar, I'm just like, all right, or it's just a guy doing a fucking voice and, and it's a guy do, it's funny to see, You're not supposed to do the voices you could do. It doesn't match what you look like. That's what's fun about it.

Well, I agree with you up to a point. Fine. I, pardon the bad pun, I don't like the black and whiteism of it, not meaning the racial aspect, but it's either, you're either, whoa. I agree. I totally agree. That's, there's nothing in the middle of it. Because I resent both ends of it.

Exactly. It drives me crazy. But what happens is, look, I stopped doing the voice. who after those years, I came to the conclusion, oh, there's a lot of good about this character and wonderfulness, and there was nothing but great intentions for the character. Yeah.

But it did come with some harm. And I am denying folks' work that should be accessible to them. And it is a tradition of Hollywood, of like, brown-face and blackface-ism, and that why are we doing that? Yeah. Why are we not thinking about the stereotypes we might be promoting?

it gets taken so far because when I write something I'm not thinking about the social good of it that's not the job I'm with you I'm with you I don't want people on the right to be like yeah get them Neil and Hank and I don't want people on the left to be like look at these bigots it's we're neither no I'm I stopped doing the voice not because I felt pressured I wanted to make sure I didn't do it for that reason because I felt that was the right thing to to do that it was an animation has gone that way not really because of me i might have contributed with that decision but um especially in that voice actor world it is there's much more thought put into well who should really do this voice if we're saying if we're trying to say anything

substantive with this character perhaps more than as equal to who's voicing it do we have writers in the room who actually know that point of view that we know indian writers in the room for years on the simpsons or black writers yeah or that many ways that many women, really. Yeah. So it was great. Those were the days. So, no, I know.

And they had a bunch of, and yet they wanted that. I mean, and it was incredible writing. Nonetheless, I'm on. Here's what I. Here, I just want to get this out. Yeah. What the problem on either extreme side is, you know, if the woke,

you know, thought police stuff, they usually have a point. Yes. They just take it so far. you could get away from me. Yes. You know, and on this side, it's like, nobody can say anything anymore.

I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's also. I want to be able to say anything in this word and that word. And it was like, all right, man, I'm not on either one of your sides. There are real consequences to, you know, in my groundwater was that Peter,

but there's nothing wrong with Don Rickles or Peter Sellers doing in Brownface or a lot of other examples. And we don't, that we don't do a lot of that stuff anymore for some good reason. Yeah. It's not like one thing you're in.

I have somebody who does casting sometimes, as I'm sure you went in a position where I've been doing a commercial. It's a part for a waiter. And then the best person for that part is black. And then I go, you know, the grad students will say, why do I have a black person in a service position? And you just go, okay, so I'll cast a Russian part. A black guy didn't get a job.

Well, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's algebra. You go, okay, I don't know. I, okay. I don't know what to do. And there are people on both sides who will guarantee what's better. That black guy getting a job or they have this measurement for the, how the harm of seeing a black guy and a service.

It's just like, I just want to cast a funny person. I mean, look, the pendulum swung way forward. then it swung, we're sort of feeling it's swing back. Yes. And, you know, but it wasn't, hopefully it'll swing back toward the middle. But we weren't kind of at that good middle 15 years ago. No. And all I can talk from, from me and what I saw, none of us ever considered these things.

It's what, at least you are thinking about it. Yeah. And it might be too much sometimes. And there's some factors about it that are kind of obnoxious or over the top society. Yeah, and I thought about it from working with Dave who would. like informant but meanwhile we did offensive asian stuff we did we did offensive we offended we did offensive characterizations of every race so but a black guy got super famous paid popular chains you know what I mean like so what's the it's hard careers

were made I like what but the idea that anyone knows exactly what's happening is what I object to It's like, you don't know the exact unintended consequences or the, I saw it, and I was inspired, and then this person does it. No, but, you know, I never considered it. Yeah. And what I kind of came to was that my good intentions with it were part of the blind spot.

Because I actually really kind of got into this work and I started not just taking seminars, but giving them and totally, You were replacing, you replaced Indians. I did. I replaced a lot of people. I put them right out of a job. And what I felt for me, and I did feel that I saw a lot of white folks leave the conversation

because they felt too attacked in the seminars themselves or by society. And then I came upon a group that had a very inclusive calling in energy around this stuff. And, you know, you're trying to go for more inclusion. It's best to be inclusive in that message. and kind of loving. And they go from the beginning that like what you just said that we're all doing our best,

we're all good intentioned. But I found for myself and a lot of other white people that the good intentions themselves were part of the blind spot because it was very difficult to believe because you know in your mind and heart what you meant.

I know in my mind and heart what I meant with Apu. Yeah. It was a ton of love in it and a love of indifference. Indian people and love of the comedy and love of Peter Sellers and love of the fact that it's a character that people don't get to see and blah, blah, blah. But then when you hear a criticism of it, you tend to think that that person criticizing

is either crazy, much too sensitive, or just playing the race card or something. Yeah. Because you know you didn't mean it that way. So you have to accept the fact that sometimes impact doesn't match intent, that there could be a part of it. It's gray. It's not black white that actually did have have some harm but in every joke contains harm I get a you guess I suppose so it does it just does it's just a matter of like I can parse every single I could watch any television any comedy I could tell you the victim of every joke there just is there just is I and again I don't have worse consequences than others which I agree I agree but it's if you if you act like you know the exact consequences it's like yeah man it's not the

no you don't but anyone who claims they do i think is uh dishonest and i don't i don't think they're intentionally being dishonest i just think it's like dude you don't know you don't you don't know no one knows exactly what happens from jokes i agree with now having said that blackface is a Yeah, but then Downey does it, and I'm like, okay. You've got to cross some fucking line. There's gray area, you know, all this. You know, we would probably the best, the most, one of the funniest, greatest, and the, and, and, um, socially impactful shows ever, right, was all in the family to me. Never would get, can't make it.

If you can't, you couldn't make it today. I think you could I'm I you think you could yeah I this you can't make anything today is the truth yeah there's no business in it there's you know you can't make a sitcom today um but there are plenty of ways you could do funny bigotry that I've done it I've written it like I you can be done it's just a matter of so well I call that baby with the bathwater like a lot of this thing a lot of the babies went out at the bathwater and now it's swung back and I'm hoping

My optimistic hope is that the baby will return and but we'll have a little more awareness. Yes, I'm living proof. You can write racial jokes and vote for Kamala Harris. I did it. Sorry, everybody. Cut to a montage of fucking racial shit. We, the Jewish people, take Lenny Kravitz. The son is basically the kind of.

for white people they're also by the way they're hemorrhaging people like me who who like i'm i am a democrat but they for 10 years of telling me how fucking awful i am you just go okay well that's a lot of what my message is because i was in the middle of all that yeah i was quite targeted in some of these rooms i was part another bad pun i was the white whale in there and i was like you know guys um alienating a lot of folks. I agree with a lot of the message, but the way it's being delivered is upsetting to people. And it makes them just shut, either literally leave or shut down while they're there. That's why I love these groups, this group. But the Human Solidarity Project, if I can throw it out there. What do they do? They do these kind of, you know, just human rights, human

awareness. Yeah. Just like these, it does, racist just one window into this conversation. It's just the ability to see ourselves in each other yeah yes you know and that's kind of what it's really all about and um and part of this is i and i feel like a lot of people i came up with in comedy and elsewhere i was just oblivious to it and now i prefer being not oblivious to it and then you could decide what joke i want to make or not or what casting i want to do or not yeah yes i guess it's it's the uh being firm on it's gray it's gray area oh i let's all agree it's gray and if you have an opinion it doesn't necessarily harm my career i'm trying not to harm other people's careers like there's just approach tone ideology a presumption of of of uh giving people the benefit of the doubt

like i just think there's a lot of stuff that wasn't happening and not like Like, and I'm not saying this, like, I'm, and I was hurt by, I'm just saying like, it's not persuasive. That's my problem with the left in the last 10 years is like, they didn't think they needed to persuade people. It's like you always have to persuade people. Sorry, you can't go, it's not my job to teach you. It is your job to teach people if you want them to come to your side. Martin Luther King wasn't going like scolding white people. He just, it's the most effective.

right human rights movement in world history the american civil rights movement yeah that's often or gondy do the voice um and and so like it takes persuasion scolding doesn't didn't work and it lost elections as far as i'm concerned hey guys i'm really happy to partner with ground news in today's episode because i've actually been using them every day for months one of the only apps that actually helped me make sense of the chaos that is the modern news cycle chaos is putting it nice. You know how every story online somehow feels like a political Roershack test? Two people read the same headline and one's like, we're saved and the other one's like, we're doomed. It's not that one of them's wrong. It's that they're living in different

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hello to long-lasting freshness Mando all right I want to I want to go over just quickly Simpson's characters you've done Mo yes I've done Mo so far nobody's had a problem

with it and anybody who does knows what they'll get Wiggum Wiggum yes You know sometimes you know what I get a lot You never were a cop

How come you can play Chief Wiggum I get asked that a lot I don't know A comic book guy Yes Beast on the game He lived next door to me freshman year at Tufts. Did I like you?

He put you on his list. Cletus Spuckler. Yeah, he's a... Technically, before, for years, before, and he had last name, he just called Cletus a slack-jawed yokel. Slat-jaw, which gave you kind of a clue as to how to play him. You know, loose-jawed. Matthew McCona, it sounds like.

Yeah. You know, of that... John Rue. Um, Professor Frank? Yes. Ivan Reitman. Um, based on Jerry Lewis's

portrayal the Nutty Professor from the 1950s. I guess it was something to that effect. Dr. Nick Rivera? Yes, Dr. Nick. It's based on Ricky Ricardo. Pretty much a bad impression

of Ricky Ricardo. What's the matter with the way I talk? Snake Jailbird. Yo, Snake is a combination of Sean Penn's character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jess Piccoli. I know that, dude. And a guy Cliff I knew in college who would report his drug experiences to you whether you asked him or not. You knock on your door and say, yo, I'm like totally seeing colors. Kirk Van Houten.

Yeah, Kirk is Millhouse, his father. and I just tried to imitate Millhouse as best I could, and what came out was like what sounded like a deeper Millhouse, which is Kirkstead. Superintendent Chalmers? Yeah, I love Superintendent Chalmers. I'm not sure what this voice is. It's sort of a classic, I don't know.

It's Moe if he went to school. If he was educated. Kind of, yeah. I use this voice to play Thomas Edison in this latest thing, the artist I just did, for the network which they assure me is real um disco stew and i think you know what line i need i don't disco stew which one he don't advertise it's my favorite joke ever ever recorded i i know i bet you that's what's amazing disco stew don't advertise is that what he said

Yeah, there's a yard sale, and there's a, Homer was selling an old leather jacket of his that said disco stud. It felt the D fell off. Right. So it said, so it says disco stew. They cut to disco stew, and so many, he goes, hey, Stu, why don't you buy this? At which point you say. Disco stew, don't advertise. Nice.

Maybe the only time he didn't rhyme, what he said. He might have. That made me I remember it incorrectly. Disco stew doesn't advertise. Anyhow. Okay, so a big one on this, God-for-saking podcast. Perfectionism. Sure.

And self-criticism, which is a thing. Yeah. Where do you draw the line in terms of what is self-improvement and what is obsession and fucking up your life an hour and days. The simple answer to that question I've learned after many years of therapy and program and recovery

is that if I'm being kind to myself and calm about it, it goes in the realm of self-improvement and solution and how can I improve here. What have been things you improved? Almost every aspect of my life. Yeah. And my work, certainly my attitude

to my ability to enjoy my work. I think actually my effectiveness of my work, I think I got him better as an artist because I'm less all over myself. It's so much more willing to just try anything and see how it goes, including willing to fail. Certainly, I'm a kinder, calmer person.

And more compassion. You were more high-strung at one point? Yes, I wasn't like a yeller, like, take it out on you guy. I would take it out on myself, but I was uptight. And people felt that around me. you know it's really great that's what i think i was sensing with the frustration like just you visually you seem frustrated i still seen that way to right now you don't um yeah no i i you know i i did in the wake of that bird cage success one of the first things i got was

this little indie film that did with billy bob thornton and ryan philippi and it didn't really do my was a film called homegrown it didn't really do much um a lot of cool people were in it and and i got along really well with billy bob and i think he's amazing And one day, and we had no trouble. We had a good working relationship. And one day he came to me and he said, you know, I had a dream about you last night. I dreamt that we're hanging out on this porch

and John Lennon came out with an acoustic guitar and started playing all of his songs for us. And Blaybop said, and Hank, you wouldn't stop talking during the entire thing. And I was like, huh. And I kind of thought about that and I said, I said, Billy Bob,

do you feel like I'm maybe a little too much with the approach to the work and what we're doing here? And I think he genuinely, I don't think it had to encourage him, but he genuinely thought about it for a second.

He went, yeah, you know, I think maybe a little bit, a little bit. And I was like, oh, all right, I'll try to. And that I really took that to heart. I was like, I think I'm a little,

I let it. spill out how on you were like a pain in the ass every detail of what are we doing what's the scene what's the dialogue was it like that in life too where we go and where we're eating what do you make the reservation the car went to ready no i was more like that in love relationships go on well you know my approach which didn't work uh was um i'm going to fix you so that you're okay so then you can't can love me, which is, you know, leaving out a big part, like, why not just fix yourself? How would you fix that? I mean, I find that I'm, I've been on the other end of that. Yeah. How, as I, and I think, if I can generalize, women do that to men more. Like,

I'm here to fix them. I'm like, whatever. I've been on both ends of that. What do you, how, what do you do from a guy's point of view? How do you, how could I do it? See, you're getting into my, how I'm a weird addict. I would, I'm not your, I said, I don't know if it was on or off, we were rolling, but you've been in every. I'm sober 19 years. I've been in AA for 19 years. And also other recover. Been in Al-Anon for 25 years.

That was my first program. I've gone to O.A. to deal with eating issues. I'm like basically Stewart's Molly. I, uh, I qualify for like every program. sex and love addicts, love, you know, relationship, codependency, workaholism, oh my God, especially the Hollywood version to talk a lot about in the one-minute show I'm writing.

And so when I would round robin these addictions, I mean, you know, I would have been an amazing cocaine addict that's my body couldn't stand it. My nose would just bleed out. Fortunately for me, or I probably would have murdered myself that way. And so when I was in a relationship, I would not really drink or use when I was in a love relationship.

They were kind of my drug. I would obsess over the person I was with. What parts of them? It depended on the young lady, but... It depended on the victim. Go on. Kind of. You know, one woman, she was very fiery and jealous and volatile and bad temper.

and it was all about appeasing that and, you know, keeping her calm and not triggering her and being a good enough boy that she would never get upset. You know what I mean? Another woman I was with was a real, you know, workaholic

and in her own thing all the time. It was about, like, drawing her out and, you know, meeting her there and taking care of her there. But the end goal was the same. I'm going to, you know, calm you down and make you right. got real obsessed with how they weren't right.

And I would point it out all the time. You know, like, here's what you need to work on. Here's what the truth of you is. Here's the problem. And I would, you know, I'd look at my end of it. Like, and I'm making it worse by doing this. And I'm going to hold up my end. And but then ultimately, you got to be okay so you can make me okay.

And finally, I was like, I'm skipping a step here where I can just like go be okay on my own and then see who wants to just kind of play with me in my overall. Okayness. Yeah. You know, because then the second those relationships ended, I would drink and I was drunk and out of control. I'd just switch addictions. Then I'd start hitting the substances real hard as soon as those relationships ended. Alcohol. Alcohol, whatever, mostly alcohol. Yeah. Coke, if I could stand it, I couldn't. I couldn't. I loved Pod until I was like 25 and made me paranoid and I couldn't smoke it anymore. But I started all that when I was like 14, 15. Did it ever, was there an official end? Was there like a bottom to all this stuff? Or was it, if you're in Al-Anon, and you're probably in Al-Anon, and you're going, well, I'm definitely not drunk. No, I wasn't doing much the time.

I was in my marriage at the time, and that wrangling of my ex-wife was getting very unmanageable. I was going bananas. I had a dear friend who, in fact, was dying of alcoholism, and I was very, very worried about him. And so, and, you know, my own career, that fraughtness in my career, which was going well at the time, but was creating a lot of stuff to handle, I got too much for me. In fact, the day I left my marriage, not we're getting divorced, but I just let's separate and move out.

We're not having, this isn't going well. I'm on my way to the hotel where I was going to live, and I got a call that dear friend of mine was in the hospital of pancreas. Titus brought on by alcoholism and I spent the next two weeks in the hospital and I was like So taking care of one person? I was right. I was overwhelmed isn't even the right word. And I'm sure I had some career would either good or horrible career thing going on that was either so good that it was overwhelming or so disappointing that it was horrifying because there's

very little in between that they had Allen on meetings at Cedars Sinai where I was basically living for a couple of weeks trying to nurse my friend through that with a few other people and i little i remember staggering over like literally staggering like uh and i walked into this meeting and um in the first i this is true i'm not exaggerating this time frame first 30 seconds i was like because i figured well if i'm going to watch somebody die from this disease he he made it through that by the way and was okay but it didn't look like he was gonna i should probably know the facts about alcoholism and you know let's get what's going on here yeah and then 30 seconds i realized i kind of know that i look at active alcoholics i think of like as like a locomotive

coming at your full speed like if they hit you they will kill you in an instant but they're kind of easy to say they're loud and huge you see you come in yeah you can like kind of go fuck and get out of the way um you know other alanons alinan if you don't know if you don't know It's people that are sort of in relationships with drug addicts and alcoholics and the sort of caretaking function becomes your addiction. Yes. They're the friends and family of alcoholics. And it's called para-alcoholism. You take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily picking up the drink.

Doesn't that sound like a riot? So, yes. And essentially, you become an alcoholic because you have that nervous disorder. you're just not drinking to assuage it. That's like, yeah, and you're upset. While alcoholics are obsessed with the next drink, you are obsessed with the person who is obsessed with the next drink.

Yeah. And for real. And you're, so you're kind of obsessed with their next drink. Yes, you know, and keeping them from it. Yeah, counting drinks. We pour expensive liquor, down drinks. There's all this quaint 1940s language

around all this in these books. But so 30 seconds in, I'm like, I kind of know about alcoholics. I'm like, I think this is more about my marriage. This is more about how I am a nut in that context and obsessive. And then 30 seconds after that, I was like, this is about the family I grew up in. This is about mom and dad and my two sisters.

And then 30 seconds after that, I'm like, you know what? This is just me now. This is just me. I don't need sisters, a friend, a wife, work, anything. I am walking, talking. I will bring this craziness. to whatever I'm in. And that was 25 years ago?

Yeah. How did you evolve in that? Like, once you go, okay, I'm all of it. Because it took me a long time to be like, oh, I'm doing this to whoever. It's just a plug and play. Yes. I'm bringing my system. Well, yeah, the way I kept going to these meetings.

Yeah. These meetings spoke to me, so I kept going even when my friend was well and out of the hospital. Like, I think I'm going to go for me now. And I didn't know what to do in my marriage. I didn't know what to do in my career. I don't do in anything. I knew I was terrified of any result of anything. I was scared to stay and my marriage.

I was scared to leave. I was scared to get a movie role. I was scared to not get a movie role. Yeah. You name. I'm scared to have a kid. I'm scared to not have a kid. And so I kept going to these meetings and, you know,

I got a sponsor and the dude, a lovely guy, amazing guy. I saved my life guy. Annie Roger just said, you know, I tell him all these stories. you said you know the one constant in all these variables is you you're always there so what are you bringing and i started working the steps and you to bring it full circle step four you take this inventory of yourself what's my part what's my part what am i bringing all this and even if you think

you're only your part might only be 10% that's the only part you actually can control yeah that is what i eventually applied to the appu thing like wasn't my part is i'm doing this voice it's gray it's this and that but I think I'm not going to do that anymore. Yeah. And I think I owe some amends for some of the harm that voice did, which is step nine to make amends. And I started living my life that way and started, you know, we mentioned, look, slavery, right?

I didn't, I'm not, I wasn't a slave. I didn't start that shit, okay? I inherited that in our society. I do feel I am accountable for the echoes of it that we still live with. And I was completely unaware of them. So becoming aware of them was part of my, that's the first part of my amends. And then using my best judgment and compassion

and deciding how I can be sensitive to that, that's where I ended up. And that applied to my personal life and all these things. And then seven years out, a lot of my recovery in Al-Anon was, well, what do I like? If I'm not following around somebody and worrying about them, what do I like to do? What serves me?

one of the things I'd like to do was drink I discovered and left of my own devices I always did and at first it was kind of healthy because it was keeping me out of getting into the next crazy codependent relationship but then that got away for me and it's about five years in all that why would it keep you out of those because it was just you would just get drunk and not be yourself

I think in order to tolerate not being with someone I needed to drink around that and that sort of kept me it was like liquid courage for not being being alone yeah for being alone it was an antidote to loneliness

got it and um do you think you're do you think human beings are meant to be coupled I've just been questioning my own assumptions about this recently like you know

fewer people are getting married fewer people and and and Like the population collapse, decline, whatever you want to call it. All of, a lot of this coupling is about child, having children, procreation, stable environment for the children, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now we have earth control.

We have a second. So is this still an old habit we have that's like, hmm. Maybe, you know. It's not going to break it, but I, I don't have a strong, I have a girlfriend. and I'm, it's awesome, but I'm also aware of the fact that, like, I don't know, like, I don't, it's awesome, it's additive, but if it wasn't additive, I don't feel like it's why it's just nature to be with a woman, Neil.

Well, there are biological drives to sort of go along with it. One of my favorite things we say in the old recovery world is the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. so i believe the human beings do have a need to connect now whatever for real yeah and one of the things i love about program recovery rooms is you really do and everybody's real honest yeah about the shit that they think feel and have been through um and how it's left them and um i have a joke about new york recovery rooms half of the shares are about someone's super like you know my super this fucking guy

so there's he knows my kitchen floods and yet so he I text him he don't text me back it had to be 90 minutes I almost have to show you this fucking text from my sponsie she's just so infuriated by her super

I'll show you after no no I'll cut the whole thing but it's I notice anytime I go to meetings here I'm just like everyone's talking about it somebody brings up your qualifier yeah I'm convinced all our pets have meetings where we're their qualifiers.

That's very fun. But what was I saying? Connection. Yeah. So I believe there is a human need for connection. We almost, but what form that takes, you know, whether you have a child, a mate, whatever, I don't think, I don't think that matters at all. Devil's advocate.

Yes. Could it be yourself? It has to start with yourself. What if it starts and ends with yourself? What have you spent, okay, hyponetic, not talking about me. No man is an island, my friend. Yeah, I, I, yes, I get that, but there is part of me that's like, spent a lot of time abandoning myself.

Well, that's no good. Yeah. So now when I come back to myself, it feels like no man, a man is an island and it's a glorious island. Maybe there's, there's limits to that. No, I, I, I thought a lot about that. this i bet go you know is fell sots jonah held yeah he was my shrink for fucking 20 years and he used to say i gotta get schmuck that was his pet name for me schmunk got to get you to stop abandoning yourself i think that ultimately getting on your own side of

the net and really and in ACA i'm in that program now adult children about the whole task is you become your own inner loving parent that's all you're trying to do ironically you can't do that, like you can't get sober either without other people's help. Yeah. You can white knuckle it, you can abstain, I suppose. My dear friend Matthew Perry, he took me to my first AA meeting. And he saw a look on my face as I was staring around

at this room full of 200 people and I was like, I don't know how this shit's gonna help me and I don't know what the fuck is going on in here and how this alchemy is supposed to work. And he just said, you know, it's something, isn't it, buddy? God's a bunch of drunks in a room together. I don't know what he meant. And he also used to say, like, alcoholism's a bully that there's no way you can beat up by yourself.

Like, forget it. But if you got guys, you can take them. Yeah. And so I think the only way to get to that place of being on my own side and being connected to myself is sharing that with other people getting past that shame

and that stuff that I'm sure I would never share with anybody else. You hear that from people and you share yours with them and then you learn to love yourself because they seem to love you even though, and they seem to love each other

and they're all like worse fucked up than you are. Yeah, Matthew Perry being a good example, you were saying something earlier once you started taking more responsibility and it's, and the thing I was saying about like, it's me, it's I go in and I run my system

and even when you don't think you're running your system, system, you're running your system. Yeah. Even when you're like, I don't know if he thought he was sober still. Do you know what I mean? Another topic, yes. Like what he thought was happening, but he was using.

Did he think he was using? I mean, without getting into it? Yeah, or whatever you want to say. I wondered, let's put this one. I wondered the same things very often. Look, you know, we've really cute, you know, a lot of slogans, as you know, the whole program. One of my favorites is my mind is a dangerous neighborhood. I don't go in there alone.

Yeah. So I know that when I'm upset, when fear and anger are coming in, I just, I have to run it by folks. That's never going to change. And then when I run it by folks, I trust and love, then I'm free to kind of go, okay, like do a thing like craft a response

or speak to myself lovingly about it or say, let's give ourselves, let's take accountability while also giving ourselves. a break here. But I'm still, I'm better and better at doing that on my own with 25 years of recovery, but I can't. Yeah, but bafflingly, you're probably not, you're still way, way off sometimes. And you're like, still? Still? Still off? And the indicator is the more angry or afraid I am, probably the more off base I am. But you tell yourself like, no, this is justified. This anger, this anger's different. You know the fear acronym is right. You know the fear acronyms

right false evidence appearing i only know them from gary busy fear f e a r f e a r that's thanks for false evidence appearing real but i can't that gary besey that counts that counts yeah but so with with mitherey i

from again did know him at all but i'm watching it watching how public he is about sobriety and going like does he know he's lying does he i don't know because obviously i mean And he certainly helped me, helped a lot of people, selling up to a lot of people.

And he brought me in. And that first year, my sobriety, he wasn't my sponsor, but I leaned on him a lot. And he was definitely sober then because you could fake that. And he was very giving. But yeah, you know, I don't know why he couldn't, let's put it this way. I don't know why he couldn't have been, ultimately he wasn't able to be as helpful to himself. as he was to so many other people. Yeah.

I don't know why. And I don't know what he told himself in those times. He might not. You know what I mean? He might not. He might not know what he was telling. It might have been. Okay, we have here.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, guys, it's a new year. Happy New Year, by the way, if I haven't seen you. New Year's resolutions are all about like, I'm going to be bad. I'm going to be perfect. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to whatever um how about it doesn't have a new you how about just like a slightly

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Meaning, was it trying to get jobs? Was it having jobs, running, whatever, like whatever your process was getting in character? What's the, how did it manifest itself? Because as an actor, it seems like pretty inconsistent workflow. It's obsession with work. So when you're not working, it's all about getting the work. Then I was fortunate enough to get a point

to point where I was always working. I mean, I once went, I think, 22 months straight with no break. The breaks were, like, recording Simpsons, like on the fly. And then back to the set or back to the play. Which is good, meaning feels good, right? Did it feel good? I've heard you talk about this. It feels good for a while.

It feels good for about the same time as high. It feels good. And then that shit wears off. And then you're like, well, now the fuck what? Not to mention my entire self-esteem is based on how I'm doing with all that. So that's not too stable. And you can ride a- Even if you're piling up work, shouldn't that sure up the self-esteem?

And it does, you know, but then that shit wears off. It might take a few years even, but- It wears off when you stop working or it wears off when you are going to work and you don't even know what you're doing. all of the both. You burn out or you stop working or you have a failure and it's not so much fun anymore.

I called Hollywood, I call Hollywood my drunken uncle. Okay? And I don't know what he's going to do any day. One day he likes me a nice warm hug. I'd like to reiterate a horrible way to make a living. Probably the worst. I know there's a lot of follow your dreams.

It's a horrible way to make a lot. Well, look, I again, Not to be a good drink. I'm grateful. Worked, worked. Worked for both of us. I get to do what I love. Worked.

I still basically get to do that. Yes. I get paid for the Simpsons, especially a ridiculous amount of money. $18,000 an episode. Yeah, almost. To do what I've done since I'm five, which is fucking imitate Bugs Bunny, basically.

On the other hand, you know, if you're living and dying by what Hollywood is saying or thinking about you at a given moment, that's rough. And it's public. It's not going to pan out. And, you know, one day it hugs you, next day, it inappropriately kisses you on the mouth or feels you up.

And you like it. And you like it. You have a Stockholm syndrome. Uh-huh. The next day, it forgets your name. It's really weird, and you don't know what you're going to get. How are you with status? Yeah, I had to make peace with that because it's gone, you know, up and down in my career.

and really never got to where I was shooting for. What were you shooting for? International movie star, George Clooney? Yeah. You know, I wanted to be, you know, I don't know, the heroes, Al Pacino or De Niro or whatever huge comedy equivalent you want to name. And from my childhood, they were different. Yeah, I wanted to make it to the top.

Uh-huh. You know? And I didn't know what that was at first. And then you, in show business, you learn what that is. Like, oh, I see it. There it is. you know i see it up there yeah and uh so you know just career disappointments and but that also became a programmatic issue because that's that brings up a lot of fear and anger

and sadness and upset and low self-esteem issues and and that's the work all is of hollywood is your um worthless unless the movie did well the show did well the things well reviewed it found an audience um people love me uh You know, fame wasn't what I was expecting, it was going to be. That was crushing to me. What did you think it was going to be? I thought it would be this warm, loving. I don't know.

I tell this to my friends sometimes, like, what do you imagine fame is? You know, like, look, everybody loves you and kind of are sweet to you and tables and restaurants and, you know, people you love know you and they come over. And I said, it's some of that. It said, I said, but the first thing I got eating. Even semi-famous for my career is a show back in the 80s called Herman's Head. Whenever I meet a girl's father, it's always the same story. First, he offers me money not to see her. Yeah, and then what happens?

I'll take the money. It's Fox Show. It was a good idea for a show. Yeah, they made it better with Inside Out, Pixar did years later. We were sort of the... There was, like, four characters in this guy's head? Yeah, in the head. Yeah. Were you one of them?

No. You were Herman? I was Herman's best friend. Okay. And on dismal tape nights, I would sit there and say to myself, well, at least I'm not in the head. At least I'm actually in the world of the show. But so I was what I'd call Herman's Head Famous,

where I didn't think the show was particularly all that. I learned a lot doing it and believe I was grateful for the job and the paycheck. But I thought it's kind of dumb. And I didn't love getting recognized for it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I didn't know.

what to say, you know, you're the horny guy from Herman's head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I didn't love that. That's not, I was picturing, you know, people worshipping. Reverence. Al Pacino's work in the godfather, not you're the horny guy from Herman's head. Yeah. That right away was like, then I thought the solution to that was, well, I got to become Al Pacino. Like, I got to achieve more and more and get to a status where I'm happy with the way people are coming out from me and what they're recognizing me for. And I had some of that. I still do.

But it's never, it's not, it's mostly, being famous is mostly about, it is those nice perks, but it's about being kind and gracious to people who come up to you. And connection. It's ultimately about connection.

Like, even if it's for, mostly I'm the kind of famous where I get, oh, I know I know you, I don't know from where. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're an actor. I don't know your name. And now I say I'm George Clooney.

I just look awful in person. And then I have a nice little chat. Yeah. And it's nice for people and for me. But it took, I can't tell you the recovery it took to get. Well, it's interesting you say the connection thing, because you do wonder when someone comes up and you try to, it feels like if you connect with them too much, is that weird?

Do you know what I mean? Like, what's the right amount of boundary versus, like, customer service? I have experimented with this in my life unless I'm really tired or stress or rushing or something's really bothering me or really in the middle of something

I'm like you know I'm up for what you're up or I'm you know I won't give you sit there for 20 minutes but like what do you need you want a picture what movie you know from you want to chat yeah do whatever you want I'm here for you we're done excellent very nice to meet you what you're like pretty much because anything I don't know how to do the middle

I know. Yeah. Does your wife mind? Sometimes more than I do. You know, I was married to Helen Hunt when I was just... Hold for applause. And she was very very famous. And I was just starting to really work.

And I think it's harder for the sidekick. I agree. Because you see all the what's going on behind her and all the craziness going on. And people come up to you. Said your wife? Can you, you know, could she sign this for me? I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, ask her.

Yeah. And so sometimes I, it's, I think it's harder for the, you know, it's harder to wrangle that sometimes than even because the person could just kind of be oblivious. I broke out of the sidekick roll and I climbed the wall and got into my own verse, but, but I am curious as to how much, because it's like, am I being weird if I'm like, stop. Protective, you mean? No, am I being weird if I'm like, tell me. I don't know. It feels like I'm thirsty for their attempt. Oh, well, I...

It's just hard to know. You know, it's like a blink thing in that... Yeah. You have big interaction thousands of times. Yeah. You get really good at reading real fast. I can tell... This is really interesting, I find, like, in that blink way.

Yeah. The question I get most often asked is, where do I know you from? Mm-hmm. That can mean, it can be genuine. Yeah. Like they're, it can mean, I know you're an actor, I don't know your name. Yeah.

It can mean, I know very well who you are. I don't know how to say that. And I can tell by the inflection in someone's voice which of those three they actually mean. And I will respond accordingly. And I don't know how I know it, but I know. Listen, I had to put a lot of, I actually worked the steps around this. I moved back to New York 12 years ago. And in L.A. you can be much more isolated.

Yeah. When was in my car? Everybody's famous. I'm the least famous person, usually. So I don't deal with it. Right here, you walk, I love walking around the city I grew up in. And there's a lot, on certain days, there's at least three or four a day if I'm out and about. And sometimes they're very low key, but there's at least something, even if it's people smiling at you as they go by you.

And I started to really get a tight rate. It became a recovery issue. I was, as we say, in the AA, restless, irritable, and discontent around, I would get, like, startled by it or not be in the mood or I didn't know how to, and I didn't want to be, like, viving people. And worse than that, I was, I had learned how to be diplomatic, polite, and calm, and kind, ostensibly,

for the most part, but I was, in my head, I was going nuts and, like, ruining the city for me. I worked the steps around it. Actually, as I did around alcoholism, like, what is this? Why am I so resentful of this interaction? What was it? Some of it was something you brought up before around.

Like, I realized I was to some extent unhappy with my own place and showed me. It was like Herman's head thing. It was like I felt like people were coming up and saying, you're not George Clooney or Al Pacino. You underachieved, didn't you? I'm like, mm-hmm. Thanks for reminding me.

Yeah. Or they'd say, oh, I love you in the bird cage. And I'm like, okay, that was 30 years ago. Yeah. But even more, as I worked on this, the phrase that kept coming up was, I felt put upon. I felt put upon in this moment.

And Stutz, Phil Stutz, there's a lot of my one-man show. I'm previewing my one-man show. I hope I'm not giving a whole fucking thing away. Come see it anyway, even if you watch this. Stutz calls that moment of recognition for a celebrity. He calls it the double fuck you. The first fuck you is somebody wants something from you. The second fuck you is it's not even really

you they want it from, some idea of you it they have, right? And I realized put upon, that was how I felt in my childhood. I felt that my mom and dad did not really know who I was at all. And yet they really had a lot of expectations and wanted stuff from me. And I felt quite put upon all that. And I realized that, you know, someone come up to me and going, where I know you from is not my mom and dad neglecting me as a child. They just genuinely want to know what I know me from. And that still didn't do it. I even had that in mind with some recovery,

and I still was like, I'm still really uptight. And finally, I just started smiling at people. I just... In response, or... I just smiled. I just was like, hey, hi. It's not a very pleasant smile. Well, I worked on it.

It's like, hello, hi. Yeah, yeah. And an amazing thing started to happen. First of all, that's all most people really wanted. Yeah. I was imagining some whole, but just be seen and smiled at and acknowledged for acknowledging it was really all they wanted. And then, I don't know, as an actor, I know if you're doing a depressing role,

you start to get kind of edgy and that's why I prefer doing comedy. It's just kind of happier. Yeah. And not the way I do it, but yeah, go ahead. Sure. No, I've seen it. It's not the way you do it at all. It's fun for us watching you.

But it's a horrible. That's the old new me is fun. Your body doesn't only do it's been a fake smile and a real smile. And I started enjoying it. And I started actually enjoying that people were enjoying it. And I actually really like it now. I've like re-Pavlov dog trained myself to like look forward to the experience. If when you do your one-man show, a thing I notice, you know when people laugh

on stage, performers laugh after own jokes. I would find it nauseating for the most part. What I found is when I look at people laughing, I laugh. Is that right? Yeah, so it's just like a weird trick of like oh, and you laugh,

you genuinely are laughed. They're laughing at you and then it's the contagion of it that I used to find annoying and I'm like, oh, that's why so-and-so was laughing because at least that's how it worked with me. I find as long as it's genuine, it's fine. I found it I noticed you do it a few times in three mics.

Yeah. I find it really endearing. And I do it, but if it's just, I don't, you know. Yeah, that was me laughing at. No, yeah, I would look, I would try to make eye contact, and that would make me laugh. Yeah. Like, that was a note. Like, it's better performing.

Don't you sometimes hear a joke and you kind of hear the absurdity of it as you're saying it for the first time. Yeah. For the first time. Like, it's like you didn't think of it. Yeah. Like, yeah. So a friend of mine one time said,

all impressionists, and I don't know if you would categorize yourself as an impression. I definitely would. Okay. Hate themselves. And they're doing the impression to get out of their experience and the

better the impression, the further they are from being themselves. I took me years to realize this. Boy, really, I'm just previewing my one manchard. It is all about this. Equal to my plastic vocal cords. and the ability to mimic, which is, I think, innate, like, what? No, I was going to ask.

Did, so you're, I would think it works. You're either watching television as a kid. Yeah. You see them out, you see Mel Blank, you see Jack Benny, you see these guys with fucking incredible instruments. You, and then you start doing them, maybe you do your uncle, your, whatever. And then at a certain point, is it like, you've realized like, oh, this feels disconnected. for my life and this is like its own realm yes uh i did it for fun i i still love it yeah it

entertains me to be able to sound like other people and so i would do it i would record myself i stole my mom and i straight recorder to those old kind you had to push press record and play really hard record and when you're five it's hard and record had that red button that no one knows what it's doing so yeah and then i realized that so that made me want to do it and do it for fun but the the obsessive drive to do it perfectly and excellently and make a living at it was driven by the low self-esteem desire to be anybody but myself anybody but myself to be maybe partly why my career didn't go as far as it maybe could ever should have is because I can't actually be Al Pacino I think I was sort of weirdly shooting

for that. I was trying to imitate everybody to get there, you know. Could I say it another way? Yeah. You can't be you. Right. Well, I had to address that in acting class with the late Great Royal London. I went in there and I was like 26. I was already doing The Simpsons.

He took one look at me and said, okay, in this class, you're not allowed to do any voices at all except your own. And you walked out. Well, thank God I did. He said, I'm not even assign you any funny scenes. You're going to stand up here and just be yourself in front of people, which was

excruciating. And then he sent me to Stutz because I couldn't do it. I mean, I started trying to work it out with Phil Stutz. Are there places within you that are more fun than doing voices? I can give you some background on this. I like being me. I like fucking take a perverse pleasure

in it. If that makes that like it's a bit of a fucking revenge thing. Like I know you don't want me to be this but I am this so fuck you a little bit like there's a you kind of use sort of that you're one of us

and where you're that contrarian flavor I think isn't that part of that? I don't you take joy I don't there I know like real contrarians like Bill Burr is like constitutionally contrarian right I am I can get

in there if you're saying that I being contrarian is my release valve from being myself that's a it's i would entertainer i'd be open to that but there's a part of me that enjoys being me because there's like resistance to it there's just people would rather people would rather just be nice affable kind

which i am but i don't seem like i am and i enjoy not seeming like it sometimes well you're riding the horse you're on aren't you Yes. You've embraced who you are. So you're talking about it in your, in three mics. And my wife has gone through a lot of this. She's very shy.

So people would mistake that for aloof, cold, you know. She don't give a fun. Yeah. Which couldn't be further from the truth. But she was just so freaked out that she was sort of in her own thing. So your affect is sort of you've come to embrace it. It's who you are. And actually enjoy it, which is great.

I don't really have that. affect. Do you have any affect? Is it all like what were you doing when the rest of us were getting an affect? Well I was imitating things a lot and I think

I grew up in my family as the comic relief. Yep. And I think I'm more the opposite like I revel in I'm real extroverted and I'll I'll chat and I'll try to

fix and help and I have to I have to stop myself from going overboard with getting well intended getting involved with you and making you laugh and being with you and too trusting probably a lot of the time and stuff like that when do you feel most yourself well that's a tough one yeah I feel most myself when I'm when I'm I'm sharing honestly about what has been hard what what I'm really feeling. Yeah. You know, it took a lot to be not numb. So to even know how upset or angry I am

or afraid I am and then to be able to actually share that with someone and listen to them and have genuine, what I could tell is genuine compassion for them, whether it's their alcoholism, whatever way it's, I feel like I'm myself. I feel like that's who I really am. Like I am addicted to that real connection people have yeah it's funny like talking to you and observing you on on tape it seems like you

went from being like chameleon then you became like you spoke chameleon which is fucking voices voices voices yeah then you spoke actor yeah scarves not even if you're not wearing a scarf like sort of scarves and like, can I tell you something? Fingerless gloves. Yes, my good man. I call people my good man. No, but the New York for it. Like, cool, you know, Sam Rockwood.

Like, you know, your class of guy, Sam's younger than you probably, but like. Sam, yeah, see, I'm jealous of guys like Sam. Sure. They're fine. Geniuses, yeah. Yeah, but like, whoever your peers are. Yeah. You guys all kind of have a similar thing, and now you're into recovery.

the recovery version of you yeah and then I'm wondering what's the what is the what's the you you beyond

which maybe maybe this is an impossible thing to ask somebody like take Hank's spirit out of all this shit out of all these dips

who what is it I think you're asking me like what's my authentic self yeah I mean it's It's non-hating. And I don't know.

You know, that's it, but it's a big question in recovery. I really do wonder. I even chat with other, some of the actors you just mentioned and some others. Like, the way we kind of talk about it is, do you think if your childhood were better, you wouldn't be you? Yeah. Did that drive you to be this amazing performer and, you know, driven to make, and then beyond amazing performer, like, actually have the fucking Gahonis to make it into show business? And we don't know. Yes, the opposite is, if you're too much yourself, you're not a convincing actor.

Meaning, when certain people are in movies, you don't go, they're a character, you go, hey, it's somebody compared to it. It's like when David Bowie would do movies. You just go, is David Bowie? Yeah. I always, I mean, whenever I would do in sketches, you want to get cameos, and then at a certain point, I was like, hey, cameos are fucking ruining these sketches because the audience takes it out for 15 seconds. I'm just like, they got so-and-so to buy a waiter.

Fuck it. So I guess I'm wondering, do you, are you, do you care? Do you want to be more? Like, are you digging toward? Not anymore. But I'm so lucky. No, honestly. Like, I, that goes without saying.

But I mean like monetarily, like, I got, I won the show business lottery with the Simpsons. Absolutely. I really did. Yes. Like, I do voices for a couple of years. Beyond. It's ridiculous. It's not, it's, it's, it's, it's, you hate to say it's cartoonish. It is.

And it quite literally affords me, the luxury. To jerk off like this. To go, well, I didn't make as far as I want, but that's okay with me. You know what I mean? Like, I get to do little character things and I get, do my Springsteen tribute band. And I get to write a one-man show And I get to do all the charitable work And I get to write a book

You know what people underestimate about Bruce Springsteen The amount of plastic surgery he's gotten is Dude Look at his face You can't look like that without plastic surgery And tanning And I mean it's like that Whatever

But it's not very obvious I know it's great It's great surgery That's what's great about it is I never even occurred I know and you have a tribute band Look at it again Look at like a

Through the years thing Yeah He looked older and born in the USA Than he does now No I mean not exactly But like he was aging naturally And at a certain point

He became mad at his own As a Bruce Springsteen tribute I got to defend Brits Unless I see there's siege From the doctor I can't sign off on it And they're the list I think people underestimate as well

He's got a real lisp. Does he have a list? Yeah. I never know. I'll give you a list. I don't see. I only see love and iconatry. But anyway, what the hell we're talking about?

Oh. If there's a who's, what's behind? What's your soul? We get to that a lot in Delt Child Alcoholic recovery. Like who is the real me? What's my inner child if there is one? Like, who would I have been if I were just raised in a nerd loving, warm, caring environment.

And I ask this question myself a lot. I think I always would have enjoyed voices and performing. That's just like my bent. But what I can't figure out is whether if I was nurtured and secure, whether I would have done much less. Like, it's plenty for me to just be entertaining either Thanksgiving table or to my classmates or in maybe community theater, you know, if I so desire.

Yeah, there's the dysfunction creates the torque. I mean, that's the, it's my last special, crazy good. It's literally all about like, everyone you love is insane. All of the greats of society are sociopaths. Yeah. Just, but so that my point was always like, why are you holding them to this like, be caught? What do you, why do you need Ellen to be caught? Like, who gives a shit?

But sometimes I wonder that if I had that love, and, you know, I didn't feel so put upon, if it actually would have made me flower more into an artist, and I would have had more of a secure platform to have launched from and been creative from. For me personally, I never could write, really, what lately I have. But I think I might have had more faith

in my own ability to see through my own visions of things. If I had more... Yeah, and then if you had that, then you're just up against the architecture of your face. do you look like a current do you look like a cop do you look like a you know what I mean it's like are you and I'm sure you've asked yourself this question are you George Clooney are you Adam Arkin yeah I'm somewhere I'm closer I don't know Adam Arkin uh you know you know I don't know George by the way looks like Adam Arkin now they do kind of look they could be brothers you're right they just

are going to be reasonably I was like oh George finally is it crossed the the Arkin barrier what's known in the business of the archenberry I have more for you but I it is interesting to like the arken barrier the limits of your it's all yeah but I mean look

not even limits it's just like what are you even this thing of like I'm condemned to be on the Simpsons I never said that of course you didn't life being a spaceship this is your role in the spaceship yeah that is honestly that is how I look at it in you

yeah like this is you know We like the same program, God's will is what happens. So it's like you got acceptance. I'm an acceptance junkie. Like, I try for shit all the time. And a lot of show business, right, is I'm trying for shit. I'm rolling these dice. I see what I'm shooting at.

There's probably about a 10 to 15% chance that my outcome is going to happen. Yeah. So that's a whole lot of acceptance of falling a little short, a lot short. And I'm, you know, I'm kind of good with that. It's the, I said to... I'm grateful that I get to roll. You got hands, dog. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Big advantage. Yeah. As I said to Hassamonnash, you think you can beat this life? Spin the wheel. See if you can beat it. There's a, there's a eight billion outcomes on this wheel.

Yeah. You want to spin it or you want to stick or spin the wheel? One of the upsides of going through a lot of hell in recovering is you get grateful for just, I'm sitting here talking to you. That's a delightful thing. It truly is. Like, I can feel it right now. I really admire you.

I really, this is awesome. This is modern world we live in. Podcasts and chats for real. Yeah. But then there's a big party that's like, you should have, what about it? Maybe it's gotten quieter clearly. Well, that's the intercritical parent,

as we like to say in ACA recovery. He's been invited in. Right? I have inner family meetings. It's getting really weird. But I do. It's parts therapy. Like everybody, everybody over here.

In IFS, internal family systems. Yes. What's up? Intercritical parent? You didn't do this, you didn't achieve that because of this, because of that. See, this is the part of you that doesn't, like, okay, I got you. I hear you. And you try to give them space, give them time, give them equal time?

It needs to be heard. Yeah. anything we can do productively based on that point of view sometimes there is yeah a lot of him was like you could write a one-man show maybe and share some of this stuff and not just sit on like that's actually a good idea yeah the one-man show if i may you have to be interesting well yeah let's hope so yeah but that's that that's it like you have to be you you you almost like should have like a no no i can't do a voice like fucking caesar milan oh no i can i can't go that far the best i do is is is rochamon every angle from here's what these voices were to me here's what

they became here's what they are now yes i know you can do voices though yeah but the kids like it no i get it no listen you did one liners and i agree i agree you didn't do the whole middle thing yes I agree. And that was very funny. A lot of that. I agree. Thanks for the fame price. Well, the part you mentioned.

You didn't mean it all to be funny. All right. I got another block for you. Yeah. Dilemma being a cool parent versus one who has appropriate boundaries with their kid. I'm interested. Do you have kids? My girl has a kid.

Well, it's almost five. My son of 16. It's a genuine fricking paradox. You want to be the kind of parent that you can tell me anything, no consequence. No consequences, meaning if you got drunk, if somebody got drunk, if shit went down, you can come me, I'll come pick you up, no questions asked. Yeah.

On the one hand, you do want to be that parent that they trust and tell things to. Yeah. On the other hand, you need boundaries, you need consequences, you need to give them the message that, but everything isn't all right. You know, you can't just, don't just go fucking experiment with everything and hope it works out all right.

and it's a very tough it's really experts you ask them are like yeah yeah it's hard you know so it's like a constant yoga of um they can trust you and talk to you and yet they also know i mean some of it is like if you're starting to feel like you're your kid's best friend yeah you know what i mean that's not your role they should feel like you're a bit of a drag and and uh friends neighborhood cop? Yeah, authoritative, not authoritarian. Right. It's not a democracy in here, but it is a very benevolent democracy.

What are hard boundaries you've had to set, if you don't mind? Some of them are, a lot of them involve. That's well, they should. Yeah, it's like we're going to monitor those hours. We're going to pay attention to how you see the phone. Yeah, yeah. Screens. Social media we held off for as long as we could.

long as we could. We just in the last couple of weeks got Snap. And because there's real consequences to that shit. And it's designed to fucking, dang. Did he bellyache? Yeah. You know, things like, we need a presentation from you, literally a slide presentation about the dangers of,

we need to know that you understand what could go wrong with this. You made him do it? Yes. That's great. And we presented the pros of it. We'll tell you. But we'll research what's good about it. So we understand that.

And you tell us what's bad about it. And then we have a contract signed about this can't happen, that there's consequences to this. We can change the hours at any time. We see you glazing out. We're going to address it, blah, blah, blah. Was that your idea? No, this came from a lot of research

talking to experts and programmatic. One of the big, I say to my wife all the time, she's in recovery too. One of the big advantages that I'm so grateful for is we start from we don't know shit. We can fuck things up so bad that people could die. We don't question that. We have no pretense that we know what we're doing and we'll do it. As addicts, as admitted addicts as people that need recovery, which again, we both agree most people need recovery.

Some people need it more than others. Yes, I believe that. Let's put it this way, more benignly. I believe everybody could benefit from us. And I feel fortunate that I fuck things up so bad that I had to pay attention and look at this as a way of living because it's really handy.

We kind of go from, Buddhists call it beginner's mind, like, I don't know. I'm humble enough to say, I don't fucking know. And there's a lot of really good folks out there who can give you a lot of really good advice on how to parent, how to handle certain situations, developmentally with each stage your child's at. There's appropriate, inappropriate ways to go about it and ways to be.

And the main thing that we can do is be calm ourselves, kind to ourselves, me and Kate, kind to each other, model that. That's the best thing we can do and create that environment. And then we can sort of go, so now what do you got over here? So we're going to try to address that in a way that's fair to you, but also acknowledging that we can't let you do whatever you want. That's great. And has he come around to it?

Gone like, that was good. He will never say that. Right. But when he's 25, you know he's going to. He might. We have a shot at that. I believe we do. All I've done is I play poker.

I've lowered the odds. I've made a greater chance of a better outcome on this hand, I think, by going by all these principles, you know. You're going to go to gambler synonymous? I've been. Do you have an issue? I don't. Yeah.

Actually, it's not my thing. I don't, even poker anymore. I love the game. I love playing, but I don't love the gambling aspect of it. You'd play without money? No, I play with money, but... But I'm saying, would you hypothetically play? You can't play without money?

Could you play online without money? Could you play just like... I'm sure there's an app, just a poker game? Yeah, you can. Like blackjack? But it's like playing solitaire or something. Yeah. You can.

But part of what's fun about the game is there's something at stake. Yeah. and you're trying to win it. But even that, you know, I like, I play less and less and less because for addicty reasons, it's hard not to get, it doesn't make me want to do it compulsively. Like, I bet more, more. I don't go that route.

But I get angry. I get annoyed. I get down to myself. I get bummed when I lose a big hand. Who needs the life itself? Got a random sequence of cards. I'm in show business. I don't need like any more of that.

Yeah, enough game. I have a, I have a game. Oh, we're going to play game? We have, well, whatever, it's not even a game. I've gone on. It's your, it's your Simpsons characters. Yes. And you're going to pick a Simpsons character.

This may work. I may cut it. And you're going to, uh, and then we're going to take random quotes from our president. Oh, right. And, um, we're going to. I've been working on Donald, it's not great. It's not great. But you're doing Donald Trump quotes as.

Simpsons characters that you play. That's the game we're playing. This should work. I mean, theoretically. He's got glasses on now and this is the characters and these are the These are the characters. Which first? Character first? Yes, characters. Superintending Chalmers, one of my favorites. Let's go with a long... He might really lend himself to a Donald Trump book. Let's go with a long...

A long one. Yep, perfect. I think this is going to make Mr. Trump sound more intelligent than he might be. Gettysburg. What an unbelievable. A unbelievable battle that was. The Battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable. I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. Gettysburg. Wow. The statement of Robert E. Lee, who's no longer in favor. Did you ever notice that? No longer in favor. Never fight uphill, me boys. Never fight uphill. They were fighting uphill. said, wow, that was a big mistake. He lost his great general, and they were fighting. Never fight uphill me, boys. But it was too late. Fantastic. I actually kind of bought that.

It was. It was moving. Okay, let's do a character. I'm not going to pick the one closest to me. I know that all true. You're trying to force like a, oh, Kirk Van Houten. This is Millhouse's father. Not a lot goes his way in life or in anything else. Okay, this is a Trump quote. We're going to be redoing the parks, redoing the grass. You know, grass is a lifetime. Like people have a lifetime and the lifetime of this grass has long been gone. When you look at the parks where the grass is all tired, exhausted, we're going to redo the grass. We're going to redo the grass. with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass,

because I own a lot of golf courses, and if you don't have good grass, you're not in business very long. Absolutely wonderful. Again, I kind of buy it more from Kirk. Pick a character place. Oh, right. Disco stew, who don't advertise.

Disco stew doesn't advertise. there you go look at those hands are they small hands if they're small something else must be small I guarantee you there is no problem I guarantee wonderful yeah okay next carriage place this goes to wood probably he'd rhyme it though yeah snake or jailbird whichever you prefer Okay. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by, like, injection inside or like almost a cleaning? Wonderful. Next, next one, please. Oh, sorry. Dr. Nick Riviera. About Hurricane Florence, he said,

one of the wettest we've seen from the standpoint of Walter. Boy, that's actually a very good, Dr. Nicklin. This is one of the wettest I've ever seen from the standpoint of blood. Okay, very good. Next character. That would be his diagnosis, I feel. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

You'll see, Captain, y'er. Old sea captain, y'ar. If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations. Your house just went down 75% in value. And they say, the noise causes cancer. Yarr. Who says that? Who says the noise because of cancer?

They do. They do. Okay, next character, please. Ah, Professor Frank, my personal favorite, uh, To Do. The most enjoyable character for me to perform in person. Oh, you're giving me a long one. Oh, my goodness gracious, in a handbasket. All right.

All right, pay attention. Look, having nuclear... My uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer. Dr. John Trump at MIT. Good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart. The Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart. Now, if you are a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if like I, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say, I am one of the smartest people anywhere in the world. It's true. It's true. But when you're a conservative Republican, even, they try, oh, do they try a number.

That's why I always start off, went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune, I was fortunate. You know, you know, I'm not nearly done yet. You know, you have to give a guy like my credentials all the time because we're a little disadvantage. Because you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me, it would have been so easy and it's not as important as these lives are. Nuclear is so powerful. My uncle explained that to me many, many years ago. The power that was 35 years ago. Fantastic.

Made more sense to me as a Frank rant. As a who? As a Frank rant that made more. I know. Cletus Spookler. Cletus is like John Yoke. Once he got to say now that Donald Trump wants him. one said see these are things that Trump said in some states the law allows a baby to be

born from his or her mother's wound in the ninth month this has to change wait a minute in some states the law allows a baby to be born from his or her mother's womb in the ninth month this has to change I thought I could sell it a little bit yeah yeah last place Chief uh did I not do Moe

you didn't do Mo no no maybe I he probably got lost in a shuffle here let's do Moe alright let's do Mo here we're gonna get the drug prices down not 30% not 40% which would be great not 50% or 60% that we're gonna get

down a thousand percent, six hundred percent, five hundred percent, fifteen hundred percent. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable. This was pretty satisfying. Trump should, I should be his, uh, something, his, uh, what do they call that? No, the, uh, press secretary. Yeah. I should be the press secretary. So Mr. Trump has decided.

that this would be best delivered as Chief Wiggum. If I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that's pretty... I want to try to get to heaven, if possible. I'm hearing that I'm not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. Boy, even for Chief Wiggum, that's a weird one. Let's do Chief Wiggum.

That was a good... See, this hurricane is... one of the wettest we've seen from the standpoint of water. You really can't go wrong with any character. Yeah. Hmm. Try this. Look at those hands. Those small hands.

If they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee. Guys, that was Hanka's area. What a journey. What a ride. We learned a lot. We, we, I hope you've learned something.

Oh. And I hope, uh, it was, it was fucking awesome. It was so, I enjoyed it. Yeah. Thank you for that. Fucking awesome. Hank is there. Please, Google them.

Google me, Google me at all. A-Z-A-R-I-A. Let your hand moment