Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson - Side Dish: More with Chuck Lorre

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

More of my interview with King of Sitcoms Chuck Lorre joins the show. Chuck Lorre opens up about the real-life experiences that shaped his sitcoms, what he learned from working with difficult stars and he takes us inside the evolution of ‘The Big Bang Theory.’ This episode was recorded at Du-Par's in LA’s Fairfax District. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's butcherbox.com slash D-O-M. Again, that's butcherbox.com slash D-O-M. Be sure to use our link so they know we sent you. Hey, it's Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Here is a little side dish from this week's episode of Dinner's On Me. This week we had on the sitcom king himself, Chuck Lorry, the creator of all your favorite shows. Well, maybe not all your favorite shows, but many of them, I assume. The Big Bang Theory, the Kaminsky Method, two and a half men.

One of my new favorite shows, Stuart fails to save the universe. It's so great. While I enjoyed a patty melt and Chuck enjoyed a short stack, we talked more about our shared experiences in the sitcom world. Specifically, this one infamous room where I tested in at CBS Television City, just around the corner from where we're dining at DuPars, where Chuck says, comedy goes to die. To get back into the conversation, you're pulling up a chair as I fill Chuck in on this 2006 sitcom I did called The Class, co-starring Friends of the podcast, John Bernthal and Lizzie Kaplan. It was Jason Ritter's character having a reunion of his third grade class.

Oh, yes. And then his fiancé breaks up with him at that party. And so that's the impetus of us all reuniting this group of people who hadn't seen each other since third grade. Got it. Because he met his fiancé in third grade. So he wanted to recreate that group of friends, and she ends up breaking up with him in front of all of us. And then the series sort of jumps off from there. It seems like a feature, doesn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I had my first test for anything for the class at the CBS studio that's right here connected to the Grove. Okay. In that basement? In that basement. Where comedy goes to die? That's exactly right.

It's soundproof. It is. The words come out of the actor's mouth and they fall to the ground. It's a carpeted room. It's carpeted on the walls. It's carpeted on the ceiling. And it's lit terribly. I remember I couldn't. It's somber. It's ominous.

Yes. I try to describe it in a book when Cryer walked in to read for the brother onto an half men. It was in that room. And they didn't want him anyway. Yeah. But he had to, you know, audition in front of Moon Vess and Moon Vest's lieutenants in a graveyard. Yeah. That room is the worst. It's the worst. It's the worst.

I mean, it's sort of, I feel like it's folklore because I don't think that these things, they test people the same way. I think everything's done through, I mean, maybe they see people in person, but it seems that everything's done through self-tapes now and people watch. Even with modern family, I remember when I was testing with certain people, they were, we were watching certain tapes on a TV screen in the room. But I'm kind of proud of myself for being able to get cast. on something in that deadly room. In the room of death, yes. Thank you. Yeah.

I love how vulnerable and truthful you get in the book as well. I mean, you talk very openly about, you know, your struggles with not only addiction, but, you know, your health problems at the beginning of your career. You talk about your failures with, you know, your love life and marriages. And I just, I think, you know, it's very brave. of you to, you know, put it all out there so plainly and without any sort of, um, it's an apologetic in a way that I think is refreshing and that you're just very honest. And I was surprised at how vulnerable you got.

And I guess one of the things that I wanted to know is if that was something that you hesitated on, if that was something that was scary for you to put out there, if it was, you know, you could have had the choice to just talk about your work, but you chose to include your personal life in a very poignant way. And I think it made the reflection of your work even more powerful because you can see where you've folded it in your personal life in stories, lines, and characters in ways that I think many people probably didn't realize. And I think that's also very powerful to show how you can take something that was maybe traumatic or that you were shamed of and then

create situational comedy out of it. Well, I'm trying to figure out how to write a memoir. The best I could come up with was if I'm going to tell my story about my life, it would make

sense to weave it into what shows up in a television show. They're not divorced to one another. They're not in silos. You know, your experiences, the stupid-ass decisions you've made and the mistakes you've made and the wrong dead ends you've gone down.

Those somehow, they wind up in a television show in one way or another. You know, so. And before I started, I read a bunch of showbiz bios and something like that. the childhood stuff's boring but I thought maybe if I can weave the childhood stuff into what showed up in a sitcom 40 years, 50 years later

maybe it won't be quite so oh Christ get to two and a half man right right right Charlie Sheen stuff right so that was the goal anyway yeah yeah we spoke obviously to or it was in but you know Brett Butler

Little Shepherd, they're notoriously difficult stars. What a great adjective. Did working with people that are difficult change the way that you bet actors? Do you do due diligence before working with people? Someone has a history of assault and battery. You avoid them. Yeah.

You know, you truly don't know who's who until you're in. up and running. Uh-huh. You know, I think I, I, I think I mentioned this in the,

in the, in the book, really don't see who's who in failure. You see it in success. See who's got

their feet on the ground when something is successful. So, you can have all the meetings in the world. Everyone's

delightful in a meeting. Yeah. Everybody's flattering. Flattering. Oh, you love your script. But, but, but, but, but, but. In success, if the show works, people are guaranteed in the extraordinary amounts of money

over a period of time, that's when you find out who's who. Yeah. So there's no real, I don't know of a vetting system other than have they been in jail and why? What else can you do? Yeah. Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, Chuck Glory tells me about what drew him to comedian Leanne Morgan

and led him to creating her Netflix show, Leanne. Plus, how actors informed the characters he wrote on his sitcoms, like why there was a lot of phone work on Grace Under Fire. Okay, be right back. I don't know about you, but I get pretty excited when football season rolls around. That's why I always make a stop at Total Wine and More before kickoff. Whether it's Kraft Bourbon, Cold Beer, or ready to drink, cocktails. It's easy to build a lineup that keeps everyone happy. And when I'm getting everything

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On Netflix, yeah. Wonderful. I can't wait to watch it. I just a fan of hers. She's amazing. Yeah. She's truly amazing. And one of those wonderfully rare stand-up comedians who isn't threatened by other people's words.

Yeah. She's not threatened by it. She comes to the whole thing with. gratitude and you know she's the real deal yeah she knows how to make people like did you feel secure going into that relationship did you yeah yeah i got to spend time with her and her family i went to knoxville and hung out with them and when somebody hits it in their 50s there's a there's an aura of gratitude and joy and humility that's it's precious it doesn't happen when You hit it at the age of 22.

You may think this is supposed to happen. It's always going to happen. I'm forever blessed by God. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could see why you think that, but no. And when somebody like Leanne comes along who worked really hard, this is 15, 20 years of hard road to get to where she got.

Did you happen to see the documentary about Steve Martin that was on? I had no idea. I don't know why I was surprised, but the years and years of experimentation, trying different things, trying to find his voice. Yeah. It was really, it was reassuring to know that, you know. I completely agree.

Whatever the medium is. Yeah, we all have our own journey. There's a journey to it, yeah. Yeah, and it's so different from an outside perspective. I mean, even just having this conversation with you today, like hearing you, elaborate on, you know, your journey and how you got to where you are today, like, it's so different from how I vision, how I see it. And it's, it is reassuring to know that, you know, we all have our

ups and downs, our struggles. And it's, it's just very encouraging to see that with all that, you can end up in a place where, like, where you are now with a memoir that is so informative and entertaining and a show that is so wonderfully realized and so different than anything you've done before and you were still growing and working on yourself as an artist. I think it's really inspiring. Thank you. You include three pilot scripts in your book, which I love. I told you this yesterday when I saw you. You include the pilot of Kaminsky Method of Big Bang Theory and of two and a half men. And Big Bang Theory, you prefaced it by saying, I'm even embarrassed to include this second draft. There's so many things that would change in it.

And I love your annotations and the margins of all these scripts, but there were more in Big Bang Theory. And there are X's things like we had to cut this. This didn't work. I'm sorry about this. So many apologies to that whole thing. And it's just, it surprises me that. what ended up being your most long-running success thus far? You never know.

Was something that started with still so much uncertainty even after a second chance? Yeah. You learn as you go. Yeah. You know, I mean, I wish that weren't the case, but that's how it works with me. I learn as I go. And it's why I've never been a big fan of writing six, seven, eight scripts ahead. because that precludes all the things you're going to learn

shooting one, two, and three. Right. You know, when you watch the actors in a scene, they're teaching you. This, not this. Yeah. This is my character. This is not my character.

Right? This is what this relationship is at its core. And this is not, you know, and so those are lessons you learn on the fly as you go if you're paying attention. Yeah. this character can do this very well, this actor can do this very well, but maybe not this, you know, this person gives great phone. I remember learning that on Grace Under Fire when I realized that Brett really didn't like being in scenes with other people. And I was writing lots of monologues for where she's on the phone and you're not hearing the other side of the phone call.

And she didn't like that either until I pointed out, those are scenes where you're alone. Yeah, yeah. There's no one else in that scene. She went, oh. Yeah, I guess it's okay. Right. But, you know, she was a monologist.

If you ever saw her stand-up act, she was, you know, she told stories. She didn't do set-up punchline. She told stories. So a phone, she gave great phone, you know. That was in the style of her stand-up. Telling a story and responding to an off-camera thing, very much like Newhart was always responding to something happening elsewhere.

Yeah, yeah. Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, Chuck and I talk about a legendary table read with Al Pacino and how Kaminsky Method star Alan Arkin didn't love when Chuck would rewrite scenes on set. Okay, be right back. Shag here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvon? 100% online and get it delivered to your door.

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One of my favorite stories in your book is this iconic, legendary table room with Al Pacino. I had, you know, Niambi and I know each other from doing Shakespeare in the park with Al Pacino, a merchant of Venice. Was he improvising? Not in that. Not in that. But I did see him in some mammoth that. that he might have been adding a little bit of floors, too. The mammoth, I had dinner with him once before he went on stage during that mammoth play.

Yeah. Telling me how he's improvising. And I remember sitting there in this restaurant, Midtown, going, first of all, you don't, no one improvises with a David Mamet script. No. It's very specific. It's like sorkin. It's just, just say it.

Encount yourself lucky that you get to say the words. What do the other actors do when you're improvising? You know? Yeah. It was still, it was a wonderful experience. And it led to Michael, you know, I led to Michael Douglas, who was a gift, a gift from God when he said, I'll do it. Yeah.

I mean, that was also, Kivinsky Method was such a turning point in your career, too. I mean, it felt so tonally different. I think much in the way that Stewart fails to save the universe feels so different. I mean, it is a real big swing, and it's a successful one. I felt that the same way with Kaczynski method. I think that it felt very different. I got to experiment, and we all start writing alone. And then if you get into, if you're lucky enough to get into television,

you wind up writing in a room with other writers. With Kerminski, I wanted to find out if I could still write alone. What would happen if I wrote these scripts without a consensus, without other people's feedback? what if I actually trusted myself to know what to do? And I really enjoyed it. I really did enjoy it. It's a little unnerving because you can go to the set

and there's a scene with Michael Douglas and Alan Arpin two icons. And it needs a rewrite, you know? And I'm trying not to convince these guys. Let's pause here. Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Let me make this better, you know?

And that's not the world they come from. You don't stop in the middle of shooting a scene in a movie. So the writer can fix it. Can fix it. But that's where I come from. Alan used to give me such a hard time. Here he comes. He'd see me coming on the set.

I think I can make this scene better. So they just would wait? They would wait. Go get a sandwich while you worked on your... They would give me a few minutes to run and scramble and then write it, print it out. How much pressure were you under when you'd? You knew I had Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, like, waiting in the other room eating a tin fish sandwich.

And it was during COVID. They were all wearing masks. Things stuck up our noses. It was crazy. Wow. It was crazy. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I, again, I was, you know, I got to work with those guys, you know. And it was incredibly gratifying.

It was incredibly great. And again, like that moment with Charlie and Angus in the pilot of Two and Half Men, I found the courage to do scenes that did not hang on a joke. Yeah. You know, I had enough faith that the audience would stay with. Yeah. If they weren't spitting milk out of their nose, they would stay with it. Yeah.

And it took me a long time to get to that. I remember you winning a Golden Globe for that show, being so. moved by that saying, I think you said like this doesn't happen to me. No, it doesn't. And I was really moved by that.

I think, you know, you have, you've been named the king of sitcoms. I mean, you have, I mean, that's what people call you. Whether or not you are. Yeah, yeah.

Bamb, bamb, bapter in a crown. Kings get decapitated. Exactly. Well, there you go. That's your perspective. But, no, but, I mean, having, you know, you have an incredible career

that people love so much. But I think that there are, like, I mean, you know, there's obviously any show holds its criticism. People think like, oh, it's too much this or it's too much that. Watching you stand in front of a group of your peers accepting that award was very moving to me. It felt very deserved.

It felt like this was also the right show for that to happen. And I, I know, it sticks to my memory. It's a very... Sticks in mind, too. poignant. The sticks in mine, too. It was, yeah, it was nice to get an out of boy. I'm not going to deny it.

It was nice to get an out of boy. Yeah, yeah. That was a little more from my conversation with Chuck Lory. If you haven't heard our full conversation yet, make sure to check it out on Dinners on Me. This episode of Dinners on Me was recorded at DuPars in L.A.'s Fairfax district. Next week on Dinners on Me, you know him from industry, transparent, and now he's starring in the horror film,

mother mommy. It's Jay Duplas. We'll talk about becoming a dad later in life, making movies with his brother Mark, and the challenging experience of making a horror movie when you're actually terrified of horror movies. Dinner's On Me is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and a kid named Beckett Productions. It's hosted by me, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. It's executive produced by me and Jonathan Hirsch. Our showrunner is Joanna Clay. Our associate producer is Alyssa Midcalf. Sam Bear engineered this episode. Hansdale She composed our theme music. Special thanks to Tamika Balance Kalasni and Justin Makita.

I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Join me next week.